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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

PHILOSOPHY
AND THEOLOGY

ROUSSEAU'S
SOCIAL CONTRACT, ETC.
TRANSLATED WITH INTRO-
DUCTION BY G. D. H. COLE,
FELLOW OF MAGDALEN CO;^

LEGE, OXFORD

, Google

THIS IS NO. 660 OF eFe^nrs^t/fS^s

LIB^/i^RX- THE PUBLISHERS WILL
BE PLEASED TO SEND FREELY TO ALL
APPLICANTS A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED
AND PROJECTED VOLUMES, ARRANGED
UNDER THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS:

TRAVEL ^ SCIENCE ^ FICTION

THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY

HISTORY ♦ CLASSICAL

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

ESSAYS ♦ ORATORY

POETRY & DRAMA

BIOGRAPHY

REFERENCE

ROMANCE

IN FOUR STYLES OF BINDING: CLOTH,
FLAT BACK, COLOURED TOP; LEATHER,
ROUND CORNERS, GILT TOP,* LIBRARY
BINDING IN CLOTH, & QUARTER PIGSKIN

London: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

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First Issus of this Edition . 1913
Reprinted • • • . 1916, 1920

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INTRODUCTION

For the study of the great writers and thinkers of the past,
historical imagination is the first necessity. Without mentally
referring to the environment in which they lived, we cannot
hope to penetrate below the inessential and temporary to the
absolute and permanent value of their thought. Theory, no
less than action, is subject to these necessities; the form in
which men cast their speculations, no less than the ways in
which they behave, are the result of the habits of thought and
action which they find around them. Great men make, indeed,
individual contributions to the knowledge of their times; but
they can never transcend the age in which they live. The
questions they try to answer w^ill always be those their con-
temporaries are asking; their statement of fundamental
problems will always be relative to the traditional statements
that have been handed down to them. When they are stating
what is most startlingly new, they will be most likely to put
it in an old-fashioned form, and to use the inadequate ideas
and formulae of tradition to express the deeper truths towards
which they are feeling their way. They will be most the
children of their age, when they are rising most above it.

Rousseau has suffered as much as any one from critics with-
out a sense of history. He has been cried up and cried down
by democrats and oppressors with an equal lack of understand-
ing and imagination. His name, a hundred and fifty years
after the publication of the Social Contract, is still a con-
troversial watchword and a party cry. He is accepted as one
of the greatest writers France has produced; but even now '
men are inclined, as political bias prompts them, to accept or
reject his political doctrines as a whole, without sifting them
or attempting to understand and discriminate. He is still
revered or hated as the author who, above all others, inspired^'
the French Revolution.

At the present day, his works possess a double significance.
They are important historically, alike as giving us an insight

"*' Digitized by Google

viii Introduction

into the mind of the eighteenth century, and for the actual
influence they have had on the course of events in Europe.
Certainly no other writer of the time has exercised such an
influence as his. He may fairly be called the parent of the
romantic movement in art, letters and life; he aflected pro-
foundly the German romantics and Goethe himself; he set the
fashion of a new introspection which has permeated nineteenth
century literature; he began modem educational theory; and,
above all, in political thought he represents the passage from a
traditional theory rooted in the Middle Ages to the modern
philosophy of the State. His influence on Kant's moral philo-
sophy and on Hegel's philosophy of Right are two sides of the
same fundamental contribution to modem thought. He is,
in fact, the great forerunner of German and English Idealism.
It would not be possible, in the course of a short introduc-
tion, to deal both with the positive content of Rousseau's
thought and with the actual influence he has had on practical
affairs. The statesmen of the French Revolution, from Robes-
pierre downwards, were throughout profoundly affected by the
study of his works. Though they seem often to have misunder-
stood him, they had on the whole studied him with the attention
he demands. In the nineteenth century, men continued to
appeal to Rousseau, without, as a r\ile, knowing him well or
penetrating deeply into his meaning. "The Social Contract,*^
says M. Dreyfus-Brisac, 'Ms the book of all books that is most
talked of and least read." But with the great revival of
interest in political philosophy there has come a desire for the
better understanding of Rousseau's work. He is again being
studied more as a thinker and less as an ally or an opponent;
there is more eagerness to sift the true from the false, and to
seek in the Social Contract the "principles of political right,"
rather than the great revolutionary's ipse dixit in favour of
some view about circumstances which he could never have
contemplated.

■; The Social Contract, then, may be regarded either as a docu-
ihent of the French Revolution, <Jr as one of the greatest books
•dealing with political philosophy . It is in the second capacity,
as a work of permanent value containing truth, that it finds a
place among the world's great books. It is in that capacity
also that it will be treated in this introduction. Taking it in
this aspect, we have no less need of historical insight than if
we came to it as historians pure and simple. To understand

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Introduction ix

its value we must grasp its limitations; when the questions it
answers seem unnaturally put, we must not conclude that they
are meaningless ; we must see if the answer still holds when
the question is put in a more up-to-date form.

First, then, we must always remember that Rousseau is writ-
ing in the eighteenth century, and for the most part in France.
Neither the French monarchy nor the Genevese aristocracy
loved outspoken criticism, and Rousseau had always to be very
careful what he said. This may seem a curious statement to
make about a man who suffered continual persecution on
account of his subversive doctrines; but, although Rousseau
was one of the most daring writers of his time, he was forced
continually to moderate his language and, as a rule, to confine
himself to generalisation instead of attacking particular abuses.
Rousseau's theory h as often been decried as joo abstract .and
metaphysical. This is In "ffiany ways its great strength; but
where it is excessively so, the accident of time is to blame.
In the eighteenth century it was, broadly speaking, safe to
generalise and unsafe to particularise. ^ Scepticism and Hisyyin..
tent wer e the prevailing tg mp*^*' ^^ *^^*^ i"<'**^^'*ritual da^*y^i and
a short-sighted despotism held that, as long as they were con-
fined to these, they would do little harm. Subversive doctrines
were only regarded as dangerous when they were so put as to
appeal to the masses; philosophy was regarded as impotent.
The intellectuals of the eighteenth century therefore generalised
to their hearts' content, and as a rule suffered little for their
lese-tmijestd : Voltaire is the typical example of such general-
isation. The spirit of the age favoured such methods, and it
was therefore natural for Rousseau to pursue them. *But his
general remarks had such a way of bearing very obvious par-
ticular applications, and were so obviously inspired by a
particular attitude towards the government of his day, that
even philosophy became in his hands unsafe, and he was
attacked for what men read between the lines of his works. It
is owing to this faculty of giving his generalisations content
and actuality that Rousseau has become the father of modern
political philosophy. He uses the method of his time only to
transcend it; out of the abstract and general he creates the
concrete and universal.

Secondly, we must not forget that Rousseau's theories are
to be studied in a wider historical environment. If he is the
first of modern political theorists, he is also the last of a long

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X Introduction

line of Renaissance theorists, who in turn inherit and trans-
form the concepts of mediaeval thought. So many critics have
spent so much wasted time in proving that Rousseau was not
original only because they began by identifying originality with
isolation : they studied first the Social Contract by itself, out of
relation to earlier works, and then, having discovered that these
earlier works resembled it, decided that everything it had to
say was borrowed. Had they begun their study in a truly his-
torical spirit, they would have seen that Rousseau's importance
lies just in the new use he makes of old ideas, in the transition
he makes from old to new in the general conception of politics.
No mere innovator could have exercised such an influence or
hit on so much truth. Theory makes no great leaps; it pro-
ceeds to new concepts by the adjustment and renovation of old
ones. Just as theological writers on politics, from Hooker to
Bossuet, make use of Biblical terminology and ideas; just. as
more modern writers, from Hegel to Herbert Spencer, make
use of the concept of evolution, Rousseau uses the ideas and
terms of the Social Contract theory. We should feel, through-
out his work, his struggle to free himself from what is lifeless
and outworn in that theory, while he develops out of it fruitful
conceptions that go beyond its scope. A too rigid literalism in
the interpretation of Rousseau's thought may easily reduce it
to the possession of a merely "historical interest": if we
approach it in a truly historical spirit, we shall be able to
appreciate at once its temporary and its lasting value, to see
how it served his contemporaries, and at the same time to
disentangle from it what may be serviceable to us and for all
time.

Rousseau's Emile, the greatest of all works on education, has
already been issued in this series. In this volume are contained
the most important of his political works. Of these the Social
Contract, by far the most significant, is the latest in date. It
represents tiie maturity of his thought, while the other works
only illustrate his development. Born in 17 12, he issued no
work of importance till 1750 ; but he tells us, in the Confessions,
that in 1743, when he was attached to the Embassy at Venice,
tie had already conceived the idea of a great work on Political
Institutions, "which was to put the seal on his reputation."
He seems, however, to have made little progress with this work,
until in 1749 he happened to light on the announcement of a
prize offered by the Academy of Dijon for an answer to the

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Introduction xi

question, ''Has the progress of the arts and sciences tended
to the purification or to the corruption of morality?" His old
ideas came thronging back, and sick at heart of the life he had
been leading among the Paris lutnikres, he composed a violent
and rhetorical diatribe against civilisation generally. In the
following year, this work, having been awarded the prize by
the Academy, was published by its author. His success was
instantaneous; he became at once a famous man, the "lion"
of Parisian literary circles. Refutations of his work were
issued by professors, scribblers, outraged theologians and even
by the King of Poland. Rousseau endeavoured to answer them
all, and in the course of argument his thought developed.
From 1750 to the publication of the Social Contract and Emile
in 1762 he gradually evolved his views : in those twelve years
he made his unique contribution to political thought.

The Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, the earliest of the
works reproduced in this volume, is not in- itself of very great
importance. Rousseau has given his opinion of it in the
Confessions, " Full of warmth and force, it is wholly without
logic or order; of all my works it is the weakest in argument
and the least harmonious. But whatever gifts a man may be
bom with, he cannot learn the art of writing in a moment."
This criticism is just. The first Discourse neither is, nor
attempts to be, a reasoned or a balanced production. It is the
speech of an advocate, wholly one-sided and arbitrary, but so
obviously and naively one-sided, that it is difficult for us to
believe in its entire seriousness. At the most, it is only a rather
brilliant but flimsy rhetorical effort, a sophistical improvisation,
but not a serious contribution to thought. Yet it is certain that
this declamation made Rousseau's name, and established his
position as a great writer in Parisian circles. D'Alembert even
devoted the preface of the Encyclopcedia to a refutation. The*^
plan of the first Discourse is essentially simple : it sets out
from the badness, immorality and misery of modem nations,
traces all these ills to the departure from a "natural" state,
and then credits the progress of the arts and sciences with
being the cause of that departure. In it, Rousseau is already
in possession of his idea of " nature " as an ideal ; but he has
at present made no attempt to discriminate, in what is un-
natural, between good and bad. He is merely using a single
idea, putting it as strongly as he can, and neglecting all its
limitations. The first Discourse is important not for any posi-

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xii Introduction

tive doctrine it contains, but as a key to the development of
Rousseau's mind. Here we see him at the beginning of the
long journey which was to lead on at last to the theory of the
Social Contract.

In 1755 appeared the Discourse on the Origin and Founda-
tion of Inequality among Men, which is the second of the works
given in this volume. With this essay, Rousseau had unsuc-
cessfully competed in 1753 for a second prize offered by the
Academy of Dijon, and he now issued it prefaced by a long
Dedication to the Republic of Geneva. In this work, which

4f^oltaire, in thanking him for a presentation copy, termed his
^ "second book against the human race," his style and his ideas
have made a great advance ; he is no longer content merely to
push a single idea to extremes : while preserving the broad
opposition between the state of nature and the state of society,
which runs through all his work, he is concerned to present a
rational justification of his views and to admit that *a little at
any rate may be said on the other side. Moreover, the idea of
"nature " has already undergone a great development; it is no
longer an empty opposition to the evils of society; it possesses
a positive content. Thus half the Discourse on Inequality is
occupied by an imaginary description of the state of nature, in
which man is shown with ideas limited within the narrowest
range, with little need of his fellows, and little care beyond
/provision for the necessities of the moment. Rousseau declares

v'^ explicitly that he does not suppose the ** state of nature '* ever
to have existed : it is a pure "idea of reason," a working con-
cept reached by abstraction from the "state of society." The
"natural man," as opposed to "man's man," is man stripped
of all that society confers upon him, a creature formed by a
process of abstraction, and never intended for a historical por-

•t trait. The conclusion of the Discourse favours not this purely
abstract being, but a stdte of savagery intermediate between
the " natural " and the " social " conditions, in which men may
preserve the simplicity and the advantages of nature and at the
same time secure the rude comforts and assurances of early
society. In one of the long notes appended to the Discourse,
Rousseau further explains his position. He does not wish,
he says, that modem corrupt society should return to a state of

* nature : corruption has gone too far for that ; he only desires
now that men should palliate, by wiser use of the fatal arts,
the mistake of their introduction. iHe recognises society as

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Introduction xiii

inevitable and is already feeling his way towards a justification
of itJThe second Discourse represents a second stage in his
political thought : the opposition between the state of nature
and the state of society is still presented in naked contrast;
but the picture of the former has already filled out, and it only
remains for Rousseau to take a nearer view of the fundamental
implications of the state of society for his thought to reach
maturity.

Rousseau is often blamed, by modem critics, for pursuing in
the Discourses a method apparently that of history, but in
reality wholly unhistorical. But it mu^t be remembered that
he himself lays no stress on the historical aspect of his work;
he gives hirnself out as constructing a purely ideal picture, and
not as depicting any actual stages in human history. The use
of false historical concepts is characteristic of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, and Rousseau is more to be con-
gratulated on having escaped from giving them too much
importance than criticised for employing them at all.

[t is doubtful whether the Discourse on Political Economy,
first printed in the great Encyclopcedia in 1755, was composed
before or after the Discourse on Inequality. At first sight the
former seems to be far more in the manner of the Social Con-
tract and to contain views belonging essentially to Rousseau's
constructive period. It would not, however, be safe to conclude
from this that its date is really later. The Discourse on In-
equality still has about it much of the rhetorical looseness of
the prize essay; it aims not so much at close reasoning as at
effective and popular presentation of a case. But, by reading
between the lines, an attentive student can detect in it a great
Jeal of the positive doctrine afterwards incorporated in the
Social Contract. Especially in the closing section, which lays
'lown the plan of a general treatment of the fundamental ques-
tions of politics, we are already to some extent in the atmosphere
of the later works. It is indeed almost certain that Rousseau
never attempted to put into either of the first two Discourses
any of the positive content of his political theory. They were
intended, not as final expositions of his point of view, but as
partial and preliminary studies, in which his aim was far more
destructive than constructive. It is clear that in first conceiv-
ing the plan of a work on Political Institutions, Rousseau
cannot have meant to regard all society as in essence bad. It
IS indeed evident that he meant, from the first, to study human

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xiv Introduction

society and institutions in their rational aspect, and that he
was rather diverted from his main purpose by the Academy of
Dijon's competition than first induced by it to think about
political questions. It need, therefore, cause no surprise that
a work probably written before the Discourse on Inequality
should contain the germs of the theory given in full in the Social
Contract. The Discourse on Political Economy is important as
giving the first sketch of the theory of the "General Will."
It will readily be seen that Rousseau does not mean by
** political economy" exactly what we mean nowadays. He
begins with a discussion of the fundamental nature of the
State, and the possibility of reconciling its existence with human
liberty, and goes on with an admirable short study of the
principles of taxation. He is thinking throughout of "politi-
cal" in the sense of "public" economy, of the State as the
public financier, and not of the conditions governing industry.
He conceives the State as a body aiming at the well-being of
all its members and subordinates all his views of taxation to
that end. He who has only necessaries should not be taxed
at all; superfluities should be supertaxed; there should be
heavy imposts on every sort of luxury. The first part of the
article is still more interesting. Rousseau begins by demolish-
ing the exaggerated parallel so often drawn between the State
and the family; he shows that the State is not, and cannot
be, patriarchal in nature, and goes on to lay down his view that
its real being consists in the General Will of its members.
The essential features of the Social Contract sure present in this
Discourse almost as if they were commonplaces, certainly not
as if they were new discoveries on which the author had just
hit by some happy inspiration. There is every temptation, after
reading the Political Economy, to suppose that Rousseau's
political ideas really reached maturity far earlier than has
generally been allowed.

The Social Contract finally appeared, along with Emile^ in
1762. This year, therefore, represents in every respect the
culmination of Rousseau's career. Henceforth, he was to write
only controversial and confessional works; his theories were
now developed, and, simultaneously, he gave to the world his
views on the fundamental problems of politics and education.
It is now time to ask what Rousseau's system, in its maturity,
finally amounted to. The Social Contract contains practically
the whole of his constructive political theory; it requires to be

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Introduction xv

read» for full understanding, in connection with his other works,
especially Emile and the Letters on the Mount (i764)» but in
the main it is self-contained and complete. The title sufficiently
defines its scope. It is called The Social Contract or Prin^
ciples of Political Right, and the second title explains the
first. Rousseau's object is not to deal, in a general way, like v
Montesquieu, with the actual institutions of existing States, but
to lay down the essential principles which must form the basis
of every legitimate society. Rousseau himself, in the fifth
book of the Emile, has stated the difference clearly. " Montes-
quieu," he says, **did not intend to treat of the principles of
political right; he was content to* treat of the positive right
(or law) of established governments; and no two studies could
be more different than these.'* Rousseau then conceives his
object as being something very different from that of the Spirit
of the Laws, and it is a wilful error to misconstrue his purpose.
When he remarks that "the facts," the actual history of
{political societies, "do not concern him," he is not contemptu-
lous of facts; he is merely asserting the sure principle that a
fact can in no case give rise to a right. His desire is to
establish society on a basis of pure right, so as at once to
disprove his attack on society generally and to reinforce his
criticism of existing societies.

Round this point centres the whole dispute about the methods
proper to political theory. There are, broadly speaking, two
schools of political theorists, if we set aside the psychologists.
One school, by collecting facts, aims at reaching broad general-
isations about what actually happens in human societies! the
other tries to penetrate to the universal principles at the root
of all human combinationj For the latter purpose facts may
be useful, but in themselves they can prove nothing. The
question is not one of fact, but one of right.

Rousseau belongs essentially to this philosophical school.
He is not, as his less philosophic critics seem to suppose, a
purely abstract thinker generalising from imaginary historical
instances; he is a concrete thinker trying to get beyond the^
inessential and changing to the permanent and invariable basis^
of human society. Like Green, he is in search of the principle
of political obligation, and beside this quest all others fall into
their place as secondary and derivative. It is required "to find
a form of association able to defend and protect with the whole
common force the person and goods of every associate, and of

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xvi Introduction

such a nature, that each, uniting' himself with all, may still
obey only himself, and remain as free as before. This is the
fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the
solution." The problem of political obligation is seen as in-
cluding all other political problems, which fall into place in a
system based upon it. How, Rousseau asks, can the will of
the State help being for me a merely external will, imposing^
itself upon my own? How can the existence of the State be
reconciled with human freedom? How can man, who is bom
free, rightly come to be everywhere in chains?

No-one could help understanding the central problem of the
Social Contract immediately, were it not 'that its doctrines often
seem to be strangely formulated. We have seen that this
strangeness is due to Rousseau's historical position, to his use
of the political concepts current in his own age, and to his
natural tendency to build on the foundations laid by his pre-
decessors. There are a great many people whose idea of
Rousseau consists solely of the first words of the opening:
chapter of the Social Contract, tlMan is bom free, and every-
where he is in chains/]^ But, they tell you, man is not born
free, even if he is everywhere in chains. Thus at the very
outset we are faced with the great difficulty in appreciating*
Rousseau. When we should naturally say "man ought to be
free," or perhaps "man is bom for freedom," he prefers to say
" man is born free," by which he means exactly the same thing-.
There is doubtless, in his way of putting it, an appeal to a
"golden age"; but this golden age is admittedly as imaginary
as the freedom to which men are born is bound, for most of
them, to be. Elsewhere Rousseau puts the point much as we
might put it ourselves. "Nothing is more certain than that
every man bom in slavery is born for slavery. . . . But if there
are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against
nature " (Social Contract, Book I, chap. ii).

We have seen that the contrast between the "state of nature •*
and the "state of society" runs through all Rousseau's work.
The EmUe is a plea for " natural " education ; the Discourses
are a plea for a "naturalisation" of society; the New HdloUe
Is the romantic's appeal for more " nature " in human relation-
j^ ships. What then is the position of this contrast in Rousseau's
mature political thought? It is clear that the position is not
merely that of the Discourses. In them, he envisaged only the
faults of actual societies; now, he is concerned with the possi-

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Introduction xvii

I bility of a rational society. His aim is to justify the change

, from "nature " to "socie^," although it has left men in chains.
He is in search of the true society, which leaves men "as free
as before." Altogether, the space occupied by the idea of
nature in the Socicd Contract is very small. It is used of
necessity in the controversial chapters, in which Rousseau is
refuting false theories of social obligation; but when once
he has brushed aside the false prophets, he lets the idea of
nature go with them, and concerns himself solely with giving
society the rational sanction he has promised. It becomes clear
that, in political matters at any rate, the "state of nature" is
for him only a term of controversy. He has in effect aban-
doned, in so far as he ever held it, the theory of a human

. golden age; and where, as in the Smile, he makes use of the
idea of nature, it is broadened and deepened out of all recogni-
tion. Despite many passages in which the old terminology
cleaves to him, he means by. "nature" in this period not the
original state of a thing, nor even its reduction to the simplest
terms : he is passing over to the conception of " nature " as
identical with the full development of capacity, with the higher
idea of human freedom. This view may be seen in germ even
in the Discourse on Inequality, where, distinguishing self-

) respect {amour de soi) from egoism (amour-propre), Rousseau
makes the former, the property of the " natural " man, consist
not in the desire for self-aggrandisement, but in the seeking
of satisfaction for reasonable desire accompanied by benevo-
lence ; whereas egoism is the preference of our own interests to
those of others, self-respect merely puts us on an equal footing

' with our fellows. It is true that in the Discourse Rousseau
is pleading against the development of many human faculties ;
but he is equally advocating the fullest development of those
he regards as "natural," by which he means merely "good."

' The "state of society," as envisaged in the Social Contract, is
no longer in contradiction to the "state of nature" upheld in
the Emile, where indeed the social environment is of the
greatest importance, and, though the pupil is screened from it,
he is none the less being trained for it. Indeed the views given
in the Social Contract are summarised in the fifth book of the
Emile, and by this summary the essential unity of Rousseau's
system is emphasised.

Rousseau's object, then, in the first words of the Social
Contract, "is to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be

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xviii Introduction

any sure and certain rule of administration, taking men as they
are and laws as they might be." Montesquieu took laws as
they were, and saw what sort of men they made : Rousseau,
founding his whole system on human freedom, takes man as
the basis, and regards him as giving himself what laws he
pleases. He takes his stand on the nature of human freedom :
on this he bases his whole system, making the will of the
members the sole basis of every society.

In working out his theory, Rousseau makes use throughout
of three general and, to some extent, alternative conceptions.
These arc the Social Contract, Sovereignty and the General
Will. We shall now have to examine each of these in turn.

The Social Contract theory is as old as the sophists of
Greece (see Plato, Republic, Book II and the Gorgias), and as
elusive. It has been adapted to the most opposite points of
view, and used, in different forms, on both sides of every
question to which it could conceivably be applied. It is fre-
quent in mediaeval writers, a commonplace with the theorists of
the Renaissance, and in the eighteenth century already nearing
its fall before a wider conception. It would be a long, as well
as a thankless, task to trace its history over again : it may be
followed best in D. G. Ritchie's admirable essay on it in
Darwin and Hegel and Other Studies, For us, it is important
only to regard it in its most general aspect, before studying
the special use made of it by Rousseau. Obviously, in one
form or another, it is a theory very easily arrived at. Wher-
ever any form of government apart from the merest tyranny
exists, reflection on the basis of the State cannot but lead to
the notion that, in one sense or another, it is based on the
consent, tacit or expressed, past or present, of its members. In
this alone, the greater part of the Social Contract theory is
already latent. Add the desire to find actual justification for a
theory in facts, and, especially in an age possessed only of the
haziest historical sense, this doctrine of consent will inevitably
be given a historical setting. If in addition there is a tendency
to regard society as something unnatural to humanity, the
tendency will become irresistible. By writers of almost all
schools, the State will be represented as having arisen, in some
remote age, out of a compact or, in more legal phrase, contract
between two or more parties. The only class that will be able
to resist the doctrine is that which maintains the divine rjght
of kings, and holds' that all existing governments were -

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Introduction xix

imposed on the people by the direct interposition of God. All
* who are not prepared to maintain that will be partisans of
some form or other of the Social Contract theory.

It is» therefore, not surprising that we find among its advo-
cates writers of the most opposite points of view. Barely
stated, it is a mere formula, which may be filled in with any
content from absolutism to pure republicanism. And, in the
hands of some at least of its supporters, it turns out to be a
weapon that cuts both ways. We shall be in a better position
to judg^e of its usefulness when we have seen its chief varieties
at work.

All Social Contract theories that are at all definite fall under
one or other of two heads. They represent society as based
^ on an original contract either between the people and the
government, or between all the individuals composing the I
State. Historically, modern theory passes from the first to the
second of these forms.

The doctrine that society is founded on a contract between
the people and the government is of mediaeval origin. It was
often supported by references to the Old Testament, which
contains a similar view in an unrefiective form. It is found in
most of the great political writers of the sixteenth century ; in
' Buchanan, and in the writings of James I : it persists into the
seventeenth in the works of Grotius and Puffendorf. Grotius
is sometimes held to have stated the theory so as to admit
both forms of contract; but it is clear that he is only thinking
of the first form as admitting democratic as well as monarchical
government. We find it put very clearly by the Convention
Parliament of 1688, which accuses James II of having "en-
deavoured to subvert the constitution- of the kingdom by
breaking the original contract between king and people.*'
^ While Hobbes, on the side of the royalists, is maintaining the
contract theory in its second form, the Parliamentarian Algernon
Sidney adheres to the idea of a contract between the people
and the government.

In this form, the theory clearly admits of opposite interpreta-
tions. It may be held that the people, having given itself up
once for all to its rulers, has nothing more to ask of them, and
is bound to submit to any usage they may choose to inflict.
This, however, is not the implication most usually drawn from
it. The theory, in this form, originated with theologians who
>- were also lawyers. Their view of a contract implied mutual

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XX Introduction

obligations ; they regarded the ruler as bound, by its terms, to
govern constitutionally. The old idea that a king must not
violate the sacred customs of the realm passes easily into the
doctrine that he must not violate the terms of the original con-
tract between himself and his people. Just as in the days of
the Norman kings, every appeal on the part of the people for
more liberties was couched in the form of a demand that the
customs of the **good old times" of Edward the Confessor
should be respected, so in the seventeenth century every act of
popular assertion or resistance was stated as an appeal to the
king not to violate the contract. The demand was a good
popular cry, and it seemed to have the theorists behind it.
Rousseau gives his refutation of this view, which he had, in
the Discourse on Inequality, maintained in passing, in the
sixteenth chapter of the third book of the Social Contract.
(See also Book I, chap, iv, init.) His attack is really con-
cerned also with the theory of Hobbes, which in some respects
resembles, as we shall see, this first view; but, in form at
least, it is directed against this form of contract. It will be
possible to examine it more closely, when the second view has
been considered.

The second view, which may be called the Social Contract
theory proper, regards society as originating in, or based on;
an agreement between the individuals composing it. It seems
to be found first, rather vaguely, in Richard Hooker's Eccle-
siastical Polity, from which Locke largely borrowed : and it
reappears, in varying forms, in Milton's Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates, in Hobbes 's Leviathan, in Locke's Treatises on
Civil Government, and in Rousseau. The best-known instance
of its actual use is by the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower
in 1620, in whose declaration occur« the phrase, "We do
solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one
another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil
body politic." The natural implication of this view would seem
to be the corollary of complete |K)pular Sovereignty which
Rousseau draws. But before Rousseau's time it had been used
to support views as diverse as those which rested on the first
form. We saw that, in Grotius's great work, De Jure Belli
et Pacis, it was already possible to doubt which of the two
theories was being advocated. The first theory was, historic-
ally, a means of popular protest against royal aggression. As j
soon as popular government was taken into account, the act 1

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Introduction xxi

of contract betvi^een people and government became in effect
' qierely a contract between the individuals composing the
society, and readily passed over into the second fonn.

The second theory, in its ordinary form, expresses only the
view that the people is everywhere Sovereign » and that, in the^
phrase of Milton's treatise, "the power of kings and magis-
trates is only derivative." Before, however, this view had been
worked up into a philosophical theory, it had already been used /
by Hobbes to support precisely opposite principles. Hobbes \J
agrees that* the original contract is one between all the In- |
dividuals composing the State, and that the government is no i
party to it; but he regards the people as agreeing, not merely I
to form a State, but to invest a certain person or certain /
persons with the government of it. He agrees that the
people is naturally supreme, but regards it as alienating its y
Sovereignty by the contract itself, and delegating its power,
wholly and for ever, to the government. As soon, therefore,
as the State is set up, the government becomes for Hobbes |^
the Sovereign; there is no more question of popular Sove-
reignty, but only of passive obedience : the people is bound,
by the contract, to obey its ruler, no matter whether he governs
well or ill. It has alienated all its rights to the Sovereign,
who is, therefore, absolute master. Hobbes, living in a time .
of civil wars, regards the worst government as better than
anarchy, and is, therefore, at pains to find arguments in sup-
port of any form of absolutism. It is easy to pick holes in this
system, and to see into what difficulties a conscientious Hobbist
might be led by a revolution. For as soon as the revolution-
aries get the upper hand, he will have to sacrifice one of his
principles : he will have to side against either the actual or the
legitimate Sovereign. It is easy also to see that alienation
of liberty, even if possible for an individual, which Rousseau
denies, cannot bind his posterity. But, with all its faults,
the view of Hobbes is on the whole admirably, if ruthlessly,
logical, and to it Rousseau owes a great deal.

The special shape given to the second Social Contract theory
by Hobbes looks, at first sight, much like a combination, into
a single act, of both the contracts. This, however, is not the
view he adopts. The theory of a contract between government
and people had, as we have seen, been used mainly as a sup-
port for popular liberties, a means of assertion against the
government. Hobbes, whose whole aim is to make his govem-

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xxii Introduction

ment Sovereign, can only do this by leaving the government

outside the contract : he thus avoids the necessity of submittingr

/ it to any obligation whatsoever, and leaves it absolute and

^ irresponsible. He secures, in fact, not merely a State which has

unbounded rights against the individual, but a determinate

authority with the right to enforce those rights. His theory is

\y not merely Statism (itaHsme) ; it is pure despotism.

It is clear that, if such a theory is to be upheld, it can stand

I only by the view, which Hobbes shares with Grotius, that a

i man can alienate not merely his own liberty, but also that of

v\ his descendants, and that, consequently, a people as a whole

j can do the same. This is the point at which both Locke and

Rousseau attack it. Locke, whose aim is largely to justify

the Revolution of 1688, makes government depend, not merely

at its institution, but always, on the consent of the governed,

and regards all rulers as liable to be displaced if they govern

t3rrannically. He omits, however, to provide any machinery

short of revolution for the expression of popular opinion, and,

on the whole, seems to regard the popular consent as something

essentially tacit and assumed. He r^ards the State as existing

mainly to protect life and property, and is, in all his assertions

of popular rights, so cautious as to reduce them almost to

nothing. It is not till we come to Rousseau that the second

form of the contract theory is stated in its purest and most

logical form.

Rousseau sees clearty the necessity, if popular consent in
government is to be more than a name, of giving it some con-
stitutional means of expression. For Locke's theory of tacit
consent, he substitutes an active agreement periodically re-
newed. He looks back with admiration to the city-states of
ancient Greece and, in his own day, reserves his admiration
for the Swiss free cities, Berne and, above all, Geneva, his
native place. Seeing in the Europe of his day no case in which
representative government was working at all democratically,
he was unable to conceive that means might be found of giving
effect to this active agreement in a nation-state; he therefore
held that self-government was impossible except for a city.
He wished to break up the nation-states of Europe, and create
instead federative leagues of independent city-states.

It matters, however, comparatively little, for the appreciation
of Rousseau's political theory in general, that he failed to
become the theorist of the modern State. By taking the State,

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Introduction xxiii

wnich must have, in essentials, everywhere the same basis, at
its simplest, he was able, far better than his predecessors, to
brin^ out the real nature of the ** social tie," an alternative
name which he often uses for the Social Contract. His doctrine I
of the underlying principle of political obligation is that of all j
great modern writers, from Kant to Mr. Bosanquet. This I
fundamental unity has been obscured only because critics have
failed to put the Social Contract theory in its proper place in
Rousseau's system.

This theory was, we have seen, a commonplace. The
amount of historical authenticity assigned to the contract almost
universally presupposed varied enormously. Generally, the
weaker a writer's rational basis, the more he appealed to history
— and invented it It was, therefore, almost inevitable that
Rousseau should cast his theory into the contractual form.
There were, indeed, writers of his time who laughed at the
contract, but they were not writers who constructed a general
system of political philosophy. From Cromwell to Montesquieu V
and Bentham, it was the practically minded man, impatient
of unactual hypotheses, who refused to accept the idea of
contract. The theorists were as unanimous in its favour as
the Victorians were in favour of the "organic" theory. But
we, criticising them in the light of later events, are in a better
position for estimating the position the Social Contract really
took in their political system. We see that Locke's doctrine
of tacit consent made popular control so unreal that he was
forced, if the State was to have any hold, to make his contract
historical and actual, binding posterity for all time, and that
he was also led to admit a quasi-contract between people and
government, as a second vindication of popular liberties.
Rousseau, on the other hand, bases no vital argument on the
historical nature of the contract, in which, indeed, he clearly
does not believe. "How," he asks, "did this change [from
nature to society] come about ? " And he answers that he does
not know. Moreover, his aim is to find "a sure and legitimate
rule of administration, taking men as they are and laws as
they might be"; that is to say, his Social Contract is some-
thing which will be found at work in every legitimate society,
but which will be in abeyance in all forms of despotism. He
clearly means by it no more and no less than the fundamental
principle of political association, the basis of the unity which
enables us, in the State, to realise political liberty by giving

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xxiv Introduction

up lawlessness and license. The presentation of this doctrine
\/ in the quasi-historical form of the Social Contract theory is due
to the accident of the time and place in which Rousseau wrote.
At the same time, the importance of the conception is best to be
seen in the hard death it dies. Though no-one, for a hundred
years or so, has thought of regarding it as historical, it has
been found so hard to secure any other phrase explaining as
well or better the basis of political union that, to this day, the
phraseology of the contract theory largely persists. A concep-
tion so vital cannot have been barren.
It is indeed, in Rousseau's own thought, only one of the
j three different ways In which the basis of political union is
I stated, according to the preoccupation of his mind. When he
is thinking quasi-historically, he describes his doctrine as that
of the Social Contract. Modem anthropology, in its attempts
to explain the complex by means of the simple, often strays
further from the straight paths of history and reason. In a
semi-legal aspect, using the terminology, if not the standpoint^
of jurisprudence, he restates the same doctrine in the form of
popular Sovereignty. This use tends continually to pass over
into the more philosophical form which comes third. "Sover-
eignty is the exercise of the general will." Philosophically,
Rousseau's doctrine finds its expression in the view that the
State is based not on any original convention, not on. any
determinate power, but on the living and sustaining rational
will of its members. We have now to examine first Sovereignty
and then the General Will, which is ultimately Rousseau's
guiding conception.

Sovereignty is, first and foremost, a legal term, and it has
often been held that its use in political philosophy merely leads
to confusion. In jurisprudence, we are told, it has the perfectly
plain meaning given to it in Austin's famous definition. The
Sovereign is *' a determinate human superior, not in a habit of
obedience to a like superior, but receiving habitual obedience
from the hulk of a given society." Where Sovereignty is
placed is, on this view, a question purely of fact, and never of
right. We have only to seek out the determinate human
superior in a given society, and we shall have the Sovereign.
In answer to this theory, it is not enough, though it is a valu-
able point, to show that such a determinate superior is rarely
to be found. Where, for instance, is the Sovereign of England
or of the British Empire? Is it the King, who is called the

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Introduction xxv

Sovereign? Or is it the Parliament, which is the legislature
(for Austin's Sovereign is regarded as the source of law)? Or
is it the electorate, or the whole mass of the population, with
or without the right of voting? Clearly all these exercise a
certain influence in the making of laws. Or finally, is it now
the Cabinet? For Austin, one of these bodies would be ruled
out as indeterminate (the mass of the population) and another
as responsible (the Cabinet). But are we to regard the House
of Commons or those who elect it as forming part of the
Sovereign? The search for a determinate Sovereign may be
a valuable legal conception; but it has evidently nothing to do
with political theory.

It is, therefore, essential to distinguish between the legal
Sovereign of jurisprudence, and the political Sovereign of
political science and philosophy. Even so, it does not at once
become clear what this political Sovereign may be. Is it the
body or bodies of persons in whom political power in a State
actually resides? Is it merely the complex of actual institu-
tions regarded as embodying the will of the society? This
would leave us still in the realm of mere fact, outside both right
and philosophy. The Sovereign, in the philosophical sense, is
neither the nominal Sovereign, nor the legal Sovereign, nor
the political Sovereign of fact and common sense : it is the
consequence of the fundamental bond of union, the restatement
of the doctrine of Social Contract, the foreshadowing of that
of General Will. The Sovereign is that body in the State in
which political power ought always to reside, and in which the
right to such power does always reside.

The idea at the back of die philosophical conception oK
Sovereignty is, therefore, essentially the same as that we found ;
to underlie the Social Contract theory. It is the view that the^
people, whether it can alienate its right or not, is the ultimate
director of its own destinies, the final power from which there
is no appeal. In a sense, this is recognised even by Hobbes,^
who makes the power of his absolute Sovereign, the predecessor
of Austin's ''determinate human superior," issue first of all
from the Social Contract, which is essentially a popular act.
The difference between Hobbes and Rousseau on this point is
solely that Rousseau regards as inalienable a supreme power
which Hobbes makes the people alienate in its first corporate
action. That is to say, Hobbes in fact accepts the theory of
popular supremacy in name only to destroy it in fact ; Rousseau

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xxvi Introduction

s.. asserts the theory in its only logical form, and is under no

temptation to evade it by means of false historical assumptions.

In Locke, a distinction is already drawn between the legal and

/the actual Sovereign, which Locke calls "supreme power";

i Rousseau unites the absolute Sovereignty of Hobbes and the

v4" popular consent" of Locke into the philosophic doctrine of
^popular Sovel'eignty, which has since been the established form
of the theory. His final view represents a return from the
perversions of Hobbes to a doctrine already familiar to
mediaeval and Renaissance writers ; but it is not merely a return.
In its passage the view has fallen into its place in a complete
system of political philosophy.

In a second important respect Rousseau differentiates him-
self from Hdbbes. For Hobbes, the Sovereign is identical with
the government. He is so hot for absolutism largely because
he regards revolution, the overthrow of the existing govern-
ment, as at the same time the dissolution of the body politic,
and a return to complete anarchy or to the "state of nature."

./ Rousseau and, to some extent, Locke meet this view by sharp
division between the supreme power and the government. For

V Rousseau, they are so clearly distinct that even a completely
democratic government is not at the same time the Sovereign ;
its members are sovereign only in a different capacity and as a
different corporate body, just as two different societies may
exist for different purposes with exactly the same members.
Pure democracy, however, the government of the State by all
the people in every detail, is not, as Rpusseau says, a possible
human institution. All governments are really mixed in
character ; and what we call a democracy is only a more or less
democratic government. Government, therefore, will always
be to some extent in the hands of selected persons. Sove-
reignty, on the other hand, is in his view absolute, inalienable,
indivisible, and indestructible. It cannot be limited, aban-
doned, shared or destroyed. It is an essential part of all social
life that the right to control the destinies of the State belongs
in the last resort to the whole people. There clearly must in
the end be somewhere in the society an ultimate court of
appeal, whether determinate or not; but, unless Sovereignty
is distinguished from government, the government, passing
under the name of Sovereign, will inevitably be regarded as
absolute. The only way to avoid the conclusions of Hobbes
is, therefore, to establish a clear separation between them.

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Introduction xxvii

Rousseau tries to do this by an adaptation of the doctrine
of the ** three powers." But instead of three independent
powers sharing the supreme authority, he gives only two, and ^
makes one of these wholly dependent on the other. He sub-
stitutes for the co-ordination of the legislative, the ^ecutive,
and the judicial authorities, a system in which the legislative
power, or Sovereign, is always supreme, the executive, or
government, always secondary and derivative, and the judicial
power merely a function of government. This division he
makes, naturally, one of wiU and power. The government is
merely to carry out the decrees, or acts of will, of the Sovereign
people. Just as the human will transfers a command to its
members for execution, so the body politic may give its deci-
sions force by setting up autlKM-ity which, like the brain, may
command its members. In delegating the power necessary for
the execution of its will, it is abandoning none of its supreme
authority. It remains Sovereign, and can at any moment recall
the grants it has made. Government, therefore, exists onijr
at the Sovereign's pleasure, and is always revocable by the
sovereign will. - — -

It will be seen, when we come to discuss the nature of the
General Will, that this doctrine really contains the most valu-
able part of Rousseau's theory. Here, we are concerned rather
with its limitations. The distinction between legislative and
executive functions is in practice very hard to draw. In Rous-
seau's case, it is further complicated by the presence of a^
second distinction. The legislative power, the Sovereign, is
concerned only with what is general, the executive only with
what is particular. This distinction, the full force of which
can only be seen in connection with the General Will, means
roughly that a matter is general when it. concerns the whole
community equally, and makes no mention of any particular
class; as soOn as it refers to any class or person, it becomes
particular, and can no longer form the subject matter of an .
act of Sovereignty. However just this distinction may seem
in the abstract, it is clear that its effect is to place all the
power in the hands of the executive : modem legislation is
almost always concerned with particular classes and interests.
It is not, therefore, a long step from the view of Rousseau to
the modem theory of democratic govemment, in which the
people l>as little power beyond that of removing its rulers if
they displease it. As long, however, as we confine our view

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xxviii Introduction

to thQ city-state of which Rousseau is thinking, his distinction
is capable of preserving for the people a greater actual exercise
of will. A city can often generalise where a nation must
particularise.

It is in the third book of the Social Contract, where Rous-
seau is discussing the problem of government, that it is most
V essential to remember that his discussion has in view mainly
the city-state and not the nation. Broadly put, his principle
of government is that democracy is possible only in small
States, aristocracy in those of medium extent, and monarchy
in great States (Book III, chap. iii). In considering this
view, we have to take into account two things. First, he
^^ rejects representative government; will being, in his theory,
^ inalienable, representative Sovereignty is impossible. But, as
he regards all general acts as functions of Sovereignty, this
means that no general act can be within the competence of
a representative assembly. In judging this theory, we must
take into account all the circumstances of Rousseau's time.
France, Geneva and England were the three States he took
most into account. In France, representative government was
practically non-existent; in Geneva, it was only partially neces-
sary ; in England, it was a mockery, used to support a corrupt
oligarchy against a debased monarchy. Rousseau may well be
pardoned for not taking the ordinary modern view of it. Nor
indeed is it, even in the modem world, so satisfactory an
instrument of the popular will that we can afford wholly to
discard his criticism. It is one of the problems of the day to
find some means of securing effective popular control over a
weakened Parliament and a despotic Cabinet.

The second factor is the immense development of local
government. It seemed to Rousseau that, in the nation-state,
all authority must necessarily pass, as it had in France^ to
the central power. Devolution was hardly dreamed of; and
Rousseau saw the only means of securing effective popular
government in a federal system, starting from the small unit
as Sovereign. The nineteenth century has proved the false-
hood of much of his theory of government; but there are still
many wise comments and fruitful suggestions to be found in
the third book of the Social Contract and in the treatise on the
Government of Poland, as well as in his adaptation and
criticism of the Polysynodie of the Abb^ de Saint-Pierre, a
scheme of local government for France, born out of its due
time.

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Introduction xxix

The point in Rousseau's theory of Sovereignty that offers
most difficulty is his view (Book II, chap, vii) that, for every
State, a Legislator is necessary. We shall understand the
section only by realising that the legislator is, in fact, in
Rousseau's system, the spirit of institutions personified; his
place, in a developed society, is taken by the whole complex
of social custom, organisation and tradition that has grown up
with the State. This is made clearer by the fact that the
legislator is not to exercise legislative power; he is merely to
submit his suggestions for popular approval. Thus Rousseau
recognises that, in the case of institutions and traditions as
elsewhere, will, and not force, is the basis of the State.

This may be seen in his treatment of law as a whole (Book
II, chap, vi), which deserves very careful attention. He
defines laws as **acts of the general will," and, agreeing with
Montesquieu in making law the "condition of civil associa-
tion," goes beyond him only in tracing it more definitely to
its origin in an act of will. The Social Contract renders law
necessary, and at the same time makes it quite clear that laws
can proceed only from the body of citizens who have constituted
the State. "Doubtless," says Rousseau, "there is a universal
justice emanating from reason alone; but this justice, to be
admitted among us, must be mutual. Humbly speaking, in
default of natural sanctions, the laws of justice are ineffective
among men." Of the law which set up among men this reign
of mutual justice the Greneral Will is the source.

We thus come at last to the General Will, the most disputed,
and certainly the most fundamental, of all Rousseau's political
concepts. No critic of the Social Contract has found it easy
to say either what precisely its author meant by it, or what
is its final value for political philosophy. The difficulty is
increased because Rousseau himself sometimes halts in the
sense which he assigns to it, apd even seems to suggest by it
two different ideas. Of its broad meaning, however, there can
be no doubt. The effect of the Social Contract is the creation
of a new individual. When it has taken place, "at once, in
place of the individual personality of each contracting party,
the act of association creates a moral and collective body,
composed of as many members as the assembly contains voters,
and receiving from the act its unity, its common id^i^ity (moi
commun), its life and its will " (Book I, chap. vi). ^fhe same
doctrine had been stated earlier, in the Political TSconomy,

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XXX Introduction

without the historical setting. ^'The body politic is also a
moral being, possessed of a will, and this general will, which
/ tends always to the preservation and welfare of the whole and
^ of every part, and is the source of the laws, constitutes for all
the members of the State, in their relations to one another and
to it, the rule of what is just or unjust." It will be seen at
once that the second statement, which could easily be fortified
by others from the Social Contract, says more than the first.
It is not apparent that the common will, created by the institu-
tion of society, need ''tend always to the welfare of the whole."
/ Is not the common will at least as fallible as the will of a
\ single individual ? May it not equally be led away from its true
I interests to the pursuit of pleasure or of something which is
really harmful to it? And, if the whole society may vote what
(conduces to the momentary pleasure of all the members and
i at the same time to the lasting damage of the State as a whole,
' is it not still more likely that some of the members will try to
secure their private interests in opposition to those of the whole
and of others? AH ..these questions, and others like them, have
been asked by critics of the conception of the General Will.
/ Two main points are involved, to one of which Rousseau
\ gives a clear and definite answer. "There is often," he says,
5" a great deal of difference between the will of aU and the
^ . general will; the latter takes account only of the common
V interest, while the former takes private interest into account,
]and is no more than a sum of particular wills." "The agree-
ment of all interests is formed by opposition to that of each"
{[Book II, chap. iii). It is indeed possible for a citizen, when
'an issue is presented to him, to vote not for the good of the
State, but for his own good; but, in such a case, his vote,
from the point of view of the General Will, is merely negligible.
But "does it follow that the general will is exterminated or
corrupted? Not at all: it is always constant, unalterable, and
pure ; but it is subsqji^ated to other wills which encroach upon
its sphere. . * . The fault [each man] commits [in detaching
his interest from the common interest] is that of changing the
state of the question, and answering something different from
what he is asked. Instead of saying by his vote 'It is to the
advantage of the State,' he says, ' It is to the advantage of
this or that man or party that this or that view should prevail. *
Thus the law of public order in assemblies is not so much to
maintain in them the general will as to secure that the question

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Introduction xxxi

be always put to it, and the answer always given by it " (Book
IV, chap. i). Hiese passages, with many others that may
be found in the text, make it quite clear that by the GeneralN
Will Rousseau means something quite distinct from the Wiil ; /
of All, with which it should never have been confused. The \
only excuse for such ccmfusion lies in his view that when, in a \
city-state, all particular associations are avoided, votes guided /"
by individual self-interest will always cancel one another, so '
that majority voting will always result in the General Will. I
This is clearly not the case, and in this respect we may charge I
him with pushing the democratic argument too far. The point, ^
however, can be better dealt with at a later stage. Rousseau
makes no pretence that the mere voice of a majority is in- ,,
fallible; he only says, at the most, that, given his ideal con-
ditions, it would be so. N,

The second main point raised by critics of the General^ Will \
is whether in defining it as a will directed solely to the common
interest, Rousseau means to exclude acts of public immorality *
and short-sightedness. He answers the questions in different
ways. First, an act of public 'immorality would be merely an '
unanimous instance of selfishness, different in no particular ,
from similar acts less unanimous, and therefore forming no
part of a General Will. Secondly, a mere ignorance of our
own and the State's good, entirely unprompted by selfish desires,
does not make our will anti-social or individual. "The general
will is always right and tends to the public advantage; but it
does not follow that the deliberations of the people are always
equally correct. Our will is always for our own good, but we
do not always see what that is : the people is never corrupted,
but it is often deceived, and on such occasions only does it
seem to will what is bad" (Book II, chap. iii). It is impos-
sible to acquit Rousseau in some of the passages in which he
treats of the General Will, of something worse than obscurity
— ^positive contradiction. It is probable, indeed, that he never
quite succeeded in getting his view clear in his own mind;
there is nearly always, in his treatment of it, a certain amount
of muddle and fluctuation. These difficulties the student must
be left to worry out for himself ; it is only possible to present,
in outline, what Rousseau meant to convey.

The treatment of the General Will in the Political Economy
is brief and lucid, and furnishes the best guide to his meaning.
The definition of it in this work, which has already been quoted.

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xxxii Introduction

is followed by a short account of the nature of general wills
as a whole. "Every political society is composed of other
smaller societies of various kinds, each of which has its interest
and rules of conduct; but those societies which everybody per-
ceives, because they have an external or authorised form, are
not the only ones that actually exist in the State : all individuals
who are united by a common interest compose as many others,
either temporary or permanent, whose influence is none the
less real because it is less apparent. . . . The influence of all
these tacit or formal associations causes by the influence of their
will as many modifications of the public will. The will of these
particular societies has always two relations; for the members
of the association, it is a general will; for the great society,
it is a particular will; and it is often right with regard to the
first object and wrong as to the second. The most general
will is always the most just, and the voice of the people is, in
fact, the voice of God."

The General Will, Rousseau continues in substance, is always
for the common good ; but it is sometimes divided into smaller
general wills, which are wrong in relation to it. The
supremacy of the great General Will is "the first principle of
public economy and the fundamental rule of government."
{^ In this passage, which differs only in clearness and simplicity
from others in the Social Contract itself, it is easy to see how
far Rousseau had in his mind a perfectly definite idea. Every
association of several persons creates a new cpmmon will ; every
association of a permanent character has already a "person-
j ality" of its own, and in consequence a "general" will; the
( State, the highest known form of association, is a fully
\ developed moral and collective being with a common will which
lis, in the highest sense yet known to us, general. All such
iwills are general only for the members of the associations
Which exercise them ; for outsiders, or rather for other associa-
tions, they are purely particular wills. This applies even to
the State; "for, in relation to what is outside it, the State
becomes a simple being, an individual " (SocM Contract, Book
I^ chap. vii). In certain passages in the Social Contract, in
his criticism of the Abb^ de Saint-Pierre's Project of Perpetual
Peace, and in the second chapter of the original draft of the
Social Contract, Rousseau takes into account the possibility of
a still higlM individual, "the federation of the world." In
the Politic(^kconomy, thinking of the nation-state, he affirms

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Introduction xxxiii

what in the Social Contract (Book II, chap. Hi) he denies of
the city, and recognises that the life of a nation is made up
of the whole complex of its institutions, and that the existence
of lesser general wills is not necessarily a menace to the General
Will of the State. In the Social Contract, he only treats of
these lesser wills in relation to the government, which, he
shows, has a will of its own, general for its members, but
particular for the State as a whole (Book III, chap. ii). This
g-ovemmental will he there prefers to call corporate will, and
by this nam^ it will be convenient to distinguish the lesser
general wills from the General Will of the State that is over
them all.

So far, there is no great difficulty; but in discussing* the
infallibility of the General Will we are on more dangerous
ground. Rousseau's treatment here clearly oscillates between
regarding it as a purely ideal conception, to which human
institutions can only approximate, and holding it to be realised
actually in every republican State, i. e. wherever the people
is the Sovereign in fact as well as in right. Book IV, chap, ii
is the most startling passage expressing the latter view.
**When in the popular assembly a law is proposed, what the
people is asked is not exactly whether it accepts or rejects the
proposal, but whether it is in conformity with the general will,
which is its will. . • . When, therefore, the opinion that is
contrary to my own prevails, this proves neither more nor less
than that I was mistaken, and that what I thought to be the
general will was not so." On his own principles laid down
elsewhere, Rousseau would have to admit Uiat it proves nothing
of the sort, except in so far as the other voters have been guided
by the general interest. Though he sometimes affirms the
opposite, there is no security on his principles that the will of
the majority will be the General Will. At the most it can only
be said that there is a greater chance of its being general than
of the will of any selected class of persons not being led away
by corporate interests. The justification of democracy is not
that it is always right, even in intention, but that it is more
general than any other kind of supreme power.

Fundamentally, however, the doctrine of the General Will is
independent of these contradictions. Apart from Kant's narrow
and rigid logic, it is essentially one with his doctrine of the
autonomy of the will. Kant takes Rousseau's poli|^al theory,
and applies it to ethics as a whole. The germ of mis applica-

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xxxiv Introduction

tion is already found in Rousseau's own worlc; for he protests
more than once against attempts to treat moral and political
philosophy apart, as distinct studies, and asserts their absolute
unity. This is brought out clearly in the Social Contract (Book
I, chap, viii), where he is speaking of the change brought about
by the establishment of society. '*The passage from the state
of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change
in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and
giving his actions the morality they had hitherto lacked. . . .
>yhat man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and
n unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds
getting ; what he gains is civil liberty . . . which is limited
the general will. . . . We might, over and above all this, add
what man acquires in the civil state morcd liberty, which
>ne makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse
appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we pre^
stribe to ourselves is liberty."

vThis one chapter contains the gist of the Kantian moral
philosophy, and makes it quite clear that Rousseau perceived
its application to ethics as well as to politics. The morality of
our acts consists in their being directed in accordance with
\ universal law; acts in which we are guided merely by our
j passions are not moral. Further, man can only possess freedom
<s^ when his whole being is unified in the pursuit of a single end ;
]and, as his whole being can be unified only in pursuit of a
\rational end, which alone excludes contradiction, only moral
(acts, only men directing their lives by universal law, are free.
^In Kantian language, the will is autonomous (t. e. prescribes
to itself its own law) only when it is directed to a universal
end; when it is guided by selfish passions, or particular con-
siderations, it is heteronomous (». e. receives its law from some-
thing external to itself), and in bondage. Rousseau, as he
says (Book I, chap, viii), was not directly concerned with the
ethical sense of the word "liberty," and Kant was, therefore,
left to develop the doctrine into a system; but the phrases of
this chapter prove false the view that the doctrine of a Real
Will arises first in connection with politics, and is only trans-
ferred thence to moral philosophy! Rousseau bases his political
doctrine throughout on his view of human freedom; it is be-
cause man is a free agent capable of being determined by
a universal law prescribed by himself that the State is in
like manner capable of realising the General Will, that is,

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Introduction xxxv

of prescribing to itself and its members a similar universal
law. -^

The General Will, then, is the application of human freedom j y
to political institutions. Before the value of this conception can/
be determined, there is a criticism to be met. The freedom
which is realised in the General Will, we are told, is the free-
dom of the State as a whole: but the State exists to secure
individual freedom for its members. A free State may be
tyrannical; a despot may allow his subjects every freedom.
What guarantee is there that the State, in freeing itself, will
not enslave its members? This criticism has been made with
such regularity that it has to be answered in some detail.

"The problem is to find a form of association which will ^
defend and protect with the whole common force the persoir''
and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting
himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as
free as before." "The clauses of the contract . . • are every-
where the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recog-
nised. . . . These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced
to one — the total alienation of each associate, together
with all his rights, to the whole community . . .; for, if the
individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no com-^
mon superior to decide between them and the public, each^
being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all,,
and the state of nature would continue " (Book I, chap. vi)..
Rousseau sees clearly that it is impossible to place any limits /
upon the power of the State ; when the people combine into a f
State, they must in the end submit to be guided in all things
by the will of the effective majority. Limited Sovereignty is a
contradiction in terms; the Sovereign has a right to all that,
reason allows it, and as soon as reason demands that the State
shall interfere, no appeal to individual rights can be made.
What is best for the State must be suffered by the individual.^
This, however, is very far from meaning that the ruling power
ought, or has the moral right, to interfere in every particular
case. Rousseau has been subjected to much foolish criticism
because, after upholding the State's absolute supremacy, he
goes on (Book II, chap, iv) 'to speak of "the limits of the
sojcereig^ power." There h no contradiction whatsoever.
fWherever State intervention is for the best, the State has a right
I to intervene ; but it has no moral right, though it must have
a legal right, to intervene where il is not for the best. 1 The

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xxxvi Introduction

Greneral Will, being always in the right, will intervene only
when intervention is proper. "The Sovereign," therefore,
"cannot impose upon its subjects any fetters that are useless
to the community, nor can it even wish to do so." As, how-
ever, the infallibility of the General Will is not enough to make
the State infallible, there still remains an objection. Since the
General Will cannot always be arrived at, who is to judge
whether an act of intervention is justified? Rousseau's answer
fails to satisfy many of his critics. "Each man alienates, I
admit, by the social compact, only such part of his powers,
goods and liberty as it is important for the community to
control ; but it must also be granted that the Sovereign is sole
judge of what is important." This, we are told, is mere State
tyranny over again. But how is it possible to avoid such a
conclusion ? Rousseau has already given his reasons for object-
ing to a limited Sovereignty (Book I, chap, vi) : it follows
absolutely that we must take the best machinery we can find
for the execution of the State's functions. No doubt the
machinery will be imperfect; but we can only try to get as
near the General Will as possible, without hoping to realise it
fully.

The answer, therefore, to the critics who hold that, in secur-
ing civil liberty Rousseau has sacrificed the individual may be
put after this fashion. Liberty is not a merely negative con-
ception; it does not consist solely in the absence of restraint.
The purest individualist, Herbert Spencer for example, would
grant that a certain amount of State interference is necessary
to secure liberty ; but as soon as this idea of securing liberty is
admitted in the smallest degree, the whole idea has undergone
profound modification. It can no longer be claimed that every
interference on the part of the State lessens the liberty of the
individual; the "liberty-fund" theory is as untenable as that of
the " wages-fund " : the members of a State may be more free
when all are restrained from doing one another mutual damage
than when any one is left "free" to enslave another or be
himself enslaved. This principle once admitted, the precise
amount of State interference that is necessary to secure freedom
will be always a matter for particular discussion; every case
must be decided on its own merits, and, in right, the Sovereign
will be omnipotent, or subject only to the law of reason.

It has often been held that Rousseau cannot really have in-
spired the French Revolution because this view is totally in-

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Introduction xxxvii

consistent with the *' rights of man," which the revolutionaries
so fervently proclaimed. If every right is alienated in the
Social Contract, what sense can there be in talking of " natural
rights" afterwards? This, however, is to misrepresent Rous^^
seau's position. The rights of man as they are preached by
the modern individualist, are not the rights of which Rousseau
and the revolutionaries were thinking. We have seen that the
theory of the Social Contract is founded on human freedom :
this freedom carries with it, in Rousseau's view, the guarantee
of its own permanence; it is inalienable and indestructible.
When, therefore, government becomes despotic, it has no more
right over its subjects than the master has over his slave (Book
I, chap, iv); the question is then purely one of might. In such
cases, appeal may be made either to the terms of the Social
Contract, or, putting the same idea another way, to the
*' natural right" of human freedom. This natural right is
in no sense inconsistent with the complete alienation supposed
in the Contract; for the Contract itself reposes on it and
guarantees its maintenance. The Sovereign must, therefore,
treat all its members alike; but, so long as it does this, it
remains omnipotent. If it leaves the general for the particular,
and treats one man better than another, it ceases to be
Sovereign ; but equality is already presupposed in the terms of
the Contract.

It is more profitable to attack Rousseau for his facile identi-^
fication of the interests of each of the citizens with those of all ;
but here, too, most of the critics have abused their opportunity ^^
He does not maintain that there can be no opposition between
a man's particular interests and the Greneral Will as present
in him; on the contrary, he explicitly and consistently affirms
the presence of such opposition (Book I, chap. vii). What he
asserts is, first, that the Sovereign, as such, cannot have any
interest contrary to the interest of the citizens as a whole — '
that is obvious; and, secondly, that it cannot have an interest
contrary to that of any individual. The second point Rousseau
proves by showing that the omnipotence of the Sovereign is
essential to the preservation of society, which in turn is neces-
sary for the individual. His argument, however, really rests i
on the fundamental character of the General Will. He would
admit that, in any actual State, the apparent interest of the/
many might often conflict with that of the few; but he would {
contend that the real interest of State and individual alike.

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xxxviii Introduction

being subject to universal law, could not be such as to conflict
with any other real interest. The interest of the State, in so
far as it is directed by the General Will, must be the interest
of every individual, in so far as he is guided by his real will,
that is, in so far as he is acting universally, rationally and
autonomously.

Thus the justification of Rousseau's theory of liberty returns
to the point from which it set out — the omnipotence of the real
will in State and individual. It is in this sense that he speaks
of man in the State as "forced to be free" by the General
Will, much as Kant might speak of a man's lower nature as
\ forced to be free by the universal mandate of his higher, more
real and more rational will. It is in this recognition of the
State as a moral being, with powers of determination similar
to the powers of the individual mind, that the significance of
^the General Will ultimately lies. Even, however, among those
who have recognised its meaning, there are some who deny its
value as a conception of political philosophy. If, they say, the
General Will is not the Will of All, if it cannot be arrived at
by a majority vote or by any system of voting whatsoever, then
it is nothing; it is a mere abstraction, neither general, nor a
will. This is, of course, precisely the criticism to which Kant's
**real will" is often subjected. Clearly, it must be granted at
once that the General Will does not form the whole actual
content of the will of every citizen. Regarded as actual, it must
always be qualified by "in so far as" or its equivalent. This,
however, is so far from destroying the value of the conception
that therein lies its whole value. In seeking the universal basis
of society, we are not seeking anything that is wholly actualised
in any State, though we must be seeking something which
exists, more or less perfectly, in every State.

The point of the Social Contract theory, as Rousseau states
it, is that legitimate society exists by the consent of the people,
and acts by popular will. Active will, and not force or even
mere consent, is the basis of the "republican " State, which can
only possess this character because individual wills are not
really self-sufficient and separate, but complementary and inter-
dependent. The answer to the question " Why ought I to obey
the General Will?" is that the General Will exists in me and
not outside me. I am "obeying only myself," as Rousseau
says. The State is not a mere accident of human history, a
mere device for the protection of life and property ; it responds

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Introduction xxxix

to a fundamental need of human nature, and is rooted in the
character of the individuals who compose it. The whole com-
plex of human institutions is not a mere artificial structiu'e ; it
is the expression of the mutual dependence and fellowship of ,
men. If it means anything, the theory of the General Will /
means that the State is natural, and the "state of nature'* an
abstraction. Without this basis of will and natural need, no
society could for a moment subsist ; the State exists and claims >^*
our obedience because it is a natural extension of our
personality.

The problem, however, still remains of making the General
Will, in any particular State, active and conscious. It is clear
that there are States in which visible and recognised institu-
tions hardly answer in any respect to its requirements. Even
in such States, however, there is a limit to tyranny; deep down,
in immemorial customs with which the despot dare not inter-
fere, the General Will is still active and important. It does not
reside merely in the outward and visible organisation of social
institutions, in that complex of formal associations which we
may call the State ; its roots go deeper and its branches spread
further. It is realised, in greater or less degree, in the whole\
life of the community, in the entire complex of private and |
public relations which, in the widest sense, may be called (
Society. We may recognise it not only in a Parliament, a ^
Church, a University or a Trade Union, but also in the most (
intimate human relationships, and the most trivial, as well as J
the most vital, social customs. ^

But, if all these things go to the making of the General Will
in every community, the General Will has, for politics, prim-
arily a narrower sense. The problem here is to secure its
supremacy in the official institutions and public councils of the
nation. This is the question to which Rousseau chiefly ad-
dressed himself. Here, too, we shall find the General Will the
best possible conception for the guidance of political endeavour^
vtn?br the General Will is realised not when that is done which j
I is best for the community, but when, in addition, the com-/
munity as a whole has willed the doing^^^^Lig ^The General?
Will demands not only good govemment,15utalso self-govem-j
ment — ^not only rational conduct, but good-will. This is whar
some of Rousseau's admirers are apt to forget when they use
his argument, as he himself was sometimes inclined to use it,
in support of pure aristocracy.^ Rousseau said that aristocracy y

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xl Introduction

was the best of ail governments, but he said also that it was
the worst of all usurpers of Sovereignty. Nor must it be
forgotten that he expressly specified elective aristocracy. ( There

^is no General Will unless the people wills the good. General
Will may be embodied in one man willing universally; but it
lean only be embodied in the State when the mass of the citizens
so wills. The will must be " general " in two senses : in the
«ense in which Rousseau used the word, it must be general in

' Its object, f . e, universal ; but it must also be generally held,
i. e. common to all or to the majority.^

f The General Will is, then, above all a universal and, in the
Rantian sense, a ''rational" will. It would be possible to find
in Rousseau many more anticipations of the views of Kant;
but it is better here to confine comment to an important differ-
ence between them. It is surprising to find in Kant, the
originator of modem " intellectualism," and in Rousseau, the

( great apostle of "sentiment," an essentially similar view on
N!the nature and function of the will. Their views, however,
t»resent a difference ; for, whereas the moving force of Kant's
moral imperative is purely "rational," Rousseau finds the sanc-
tion of his Greneral Will in human feeling itself. As we can
see from a passage in the original draft of the Social Contract,
the General Will remains purely rational. "No-one will dis-
pute that the General Will is in each individual a pure act of
the understanding, which reasons while the passions are silent
on what a man may demand of his neighbour and on what his
neighbour has a right to demand of him." The will remains
purely rational, but Rousseau feels that it needs an external
motive power. "If natural law," he writes, "were written
only on the tablets of human reason it would be incapable of
guiding the greater part of our actions; but it is also graven
on the heart of man in characters that cannot be effaced, and
it is there it speaks to him more strongly than all the precepts
of the philosophers" (from an unfinished essay on The State
of War), The nature of this guiding sentiment is explained
in the Discourse on Inequality (p. 197, note 2), where egoism
(amour-propre) is contrasted with self-respect (amour de soi).
Naturally, Rousseau holds, man does not want everything for

^ The term "general " will means, in Rousseau, not so much " will held by
several persons, as will having a general (universal) object. This is often
misunderstood ; but the mistake matters the less, because the General Will
must, in &ct, be both.

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Introduction xli

himself, and nothing for others. "Egoism" and "altruism"
are both one-sided qualities arising out of the perversion of . /'
man's, "natural goodness." "Man is bom good," that is,
man's nature really makes him desire only to be treated as one
among others, to share equally. This natural love of equality
{amour de soi) includes love of others as well as love of self,
and egoism, loving one's self at the expense of others, is an
unnatural and perverted condition. The "rational" precepts
of the General Will, therefore, find an echo in the heart of the
"natural" man, and, if we can only secure the human being
against perversion by existing societies, the General Will can
be made actual.

This is the meeting-point of Rousseau's educational with his
political theory. His view as a whole can be studied only .by
taking together the Social Contract and the Emile as explained
by the Letters on the Mount and other works. The funda-
mental dogma of the natural goodness of man finds no place
directly in the Social Contract; but it lurks behind the whole
of his political theory, and is indeed, throughout, his master-
conception. His educational, his religious, his political and his
ethical ideas are all inspired by a single consistent attitude.
Here we have been attending only to his political theory ; in
the volume which is to follow, containing the Letters on the
Mount and other works, some attempt will be made to draw
the various threads together and estimate his work as a whole.
The political works, however, can be read separately, and the
Socidl Contract itself is still by far the best of all text-books
of political philosophy. Rousseau's political influence, so far
from being dead, is every day increasing; and as new genera-
tions and new classes of men come to the study of his work,
his conceptions, often hazy and undeveloped, but nearly always
of lasting value, will assuredly form the basis of a new political
philosophy, in which they will be taken up and transformed.
This new philosophy is the work of the future; but, rooted
upon the conception of Rousseau, it will stretch far back into
the past. Of our time, it will be for all time; its solutions
will be at once relatively permanent and ceaselessly progressive.

G. D. H. COLB.

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xlii Introduction

A NOTE ON BOOKS

Thbrb are few good books in English on Rousseau's politics.
By far the best treatment is to be found in Mr. Bernard Bosan-
quet's Philosophical Theory of the State, Viscount Morley's
Rousseau is a good life, but is not of much use as a criticism
of views; Mr. W. Boyd's The Educational Theory of Rousseau
contains some fairly good chapters on the political views.
D. G. Ritchie's Darwin and Hegel includes an admirable essay
on The Social Contta^ct Theory and another on Sovereignty,
The English translation of Professor Gran's Rousseau is an
interesting biography.

In French, there is a good cheap edition of Rousseau's com-
plete works published by Hachette in thirteen volumes. M.
Dreyfus-Brisac's great edition of the Contrat Social is indis-
pensable, and there is a good small edition with notes by M.
Georges Beaulavon. M. Faguet's study of Rousseau in his
DiX'huitiime sikcle — itudes littiraires and his Politique com-
parde de Montesquieu, Voltaire et Rousseau are useful, though
I am seldom in agreement with them. M. Henri Rodet's
Le Contrat Social et les idies poUHques de /. /. Rousseau is
useful, if not inspired, and there are interesting works by
MM. Chuquet, Fabre and Lemaitre. The French translation
of Professor Holding's little volume on Rousseau : sa vie et sa
philosophic is admirable.

Miss Foxley's translation of the Emile, especially of Book V,
should be studied in connection with the Social Contract, A
companion volume, containing the Letters on the Mount and
other works, will be issued shortly.

G. D. H. C.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Principal Works : Article in the Mercure in answer to one entitled
Si le roonde que nous habitons est une sphere ou une sph^rolde, 1738 ;
Le Verger de Nfme. de Warens, 1739 ; Sur la musique modeme, 1743 ; Si
le r^tablissement des Sciences et des Arts a contribu6 i ^pur-r les Moeurs,
prize essay, 1750, translated by R. Wynne, 1752, by anonymous author,
1760, by H. Smithers, 1818; Devin du Village (opera), 1753, translated
by C. Burney, 1766; Nardsse, ou Amant de lui-m6me, I75|; Lettre sur
la musique Fran9aise, 1753; ^ur I'origine de Tin^galit^ parmi les hommes,
'755> Discours sur deux prindpes avanc^s par Rameau, 1755; Sur

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Bibliography xliii

r^onomie politique, 1758; Letter to d'Alembert on his article Gen^Te
in the Encyclop6die, 1758, translated 17595 Lettres k Voltaire, 1759;
Julie, ou la nouvelle H6loIse, first published under the title of Lettres de
deux amants, habitants d'une petite ville au pied des Alpes, etc, 1761 ;
Contrat Social, or Principes du droit politique, 1762; Emile, ou De TEduca-
tion, 1762; Lettre k Chnstophe de Beaumont, Archev^ue de Paris, 1763 ;
Allude Silvie (poem), 1763; Lettres Sorites de la Montague, 1764; De
rimitation thdttrale, 1764; Dictionnaire de musique, 1767, translated
by W. Waring, 1779; Lettres sur son exil du Canton de Berne, 1770.

Posthumous Works: Emile et Sophie, 1780; Les consolations des
mis^res de ma vie, 1781 ; Considerations sur le gouvemement de Pologne,
1782; Les Confessions, and Reveries du Proroeneur Solitaire, 4 vols.,
1782-9 ; Nouveau D6dale, 1801 ; La Botanique de T. J. Rousseau, 1805 ;
translated, with additional letters, by T. Martyn, 1785, 7th edition, 1807 ;
Testament de J. J. Rousseau, 1820.

Translations : H^lolse (Eloisa), 1761, with a sequel found after the
author's death, 1784, 1795, 1810; Emile, by Nugent, 1763; anonymous
translator the same year; abridged and annotated by W. H. Pa3rne, 1893 ;
Emile et Sophie, by Nugent, 1765 (?), by the translator of Eloisa, 1767 ;
Contrat Social, 1764, 1 791, in vol. ill of Political Classics, 1795 ;
1840 (?), by R. M. Harrington, with Introduction by E. L. Walter,
1893 ; by H. J. Tozer 1895, 1902, 1905 ; Confessions, 2 vols., 1783 ;
1796-90, 1861, 1891 (Masterpieces of Foreign Authors), abridged from
1896 edition, with preface by G. J. Holyoake, 1857 ; complete translation
(privately printed), 2 vols., 1896; with Introduction by Hcsketh Mills
(Sisley Books), 1907 ; the second part, with a new collection of letters,
3 vols., 1791.

Works : 1764 (6 vols.) ; 1769 (11 vols.) ; 1774 (London, 9 vols.) ; 1782,
etc. (17 vols.) ; 1790 (53 ypls.) ; 1790 (30 vols., or 35) ; 1788-93 (39 vols.) ;
1793-1800 (Didot, 18 vols.), and later editions from this same firm ;
Musset-Pathay, 1823-6.

MiSCSLLANBOUS WORKS : 5 vols., 1 767.

Posthumous Works: 1782, 1783; CEuvres incites (Musset-Pathay),
1825, 1833 ; Fn^gments in^U, etc., by A. d^ Bougy, 1853 ; CEuvres et
Correspondance in^tes (Streckeisen-Moultou), 1861 ; Fragments in^ts ;
Recherches biographiques et litteraires, A. Jansen, 1882.

Works translated from the French, 10 vols., 1773-74.

Letters: Sur difr<6rents Sinets, 5 vols., 1 749-53; Lettres nouvelles
sur le motif de sa retraite k la Oimpagne, adres»^ k M. de Malesherbes,
1780 ; Nouvelles lettres, 1789 ; Lettres au citoyen Lenieps, etc, 1793 W >
Correspondance originaie et incite avec Mme. Latour de Tranqueville
et M. du Peyrou, 2 voU., 1803 ; Lettres in6dites k Mme. d'Epinay (see
Memoirs of Mme. d'Epinay), 1818 ; Lettres de Voltaire et de Rousseau k
C. J. Panckoucke, 1828 ; Lettres myites k M. M. Rey, 1858 ; Lettres k
Mme. Dupin (in Le Portefeuille de Mme. Dupin), 1884 ; Lettres iu^tes
(correspondence with Mme. Roy de Latour), published by U. de Roth-
schild, with pre&ce by L. Qaretie, 1892 ; Lettres (between Rousseau and
"Henriette'^, published by H. Buffenoir, 1902; Correspondance avec
L^nard Usteri, 1910.

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xliv Bibliography

Translations : Original letters to M. de Malesherbes, d'Alembert,
Mme. la M. de LuxemU>urg, etc., 1799, 1820; Eighteen letters to Mme.
d'HoudetDt, October 1757-March 1758, 1905.

Life, etc. : J. H. Fuessli, Remarks on the Writings and Conduct of Jean
Jacques Rousseau, 1767 ; Stael-Holsteim (Baroness de Rocco), Letters on
the Work and Character of Jean Jacques Rousseau (translation), 1789,
1814 ; J. Morley, Rousseau, 1873, 1886 ; H. G. Graham, Rousseau (Foreign
Classics for English Readers), 1882 ; T. Davidson, Rousseau and Education
according to Nature (Great Educators), vol. ix., 1898; J. Texte, Jean
Jacques Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan Spirit in Literature, etc. (transla-
tion), 1899 ; H. H. Hudson, Rousseau and Naturalism in Life and Thought
(World's Epoch Makers), 1903 ; F. Macdonald, Jean Jacques Rousseau,
a new criticism, 1906 ; J. C. Collins, Voluire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau
in England, 1908.

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CONTENTS

PAC«

iNTRODaCTION r vii

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

FOKSWORD 3

In which it is inquired why manpassts from ths staU
tf nature to the state of society etnd what are the essential
conditions of the compact,
chaK

I The Subject of the first Book 5

II The first Societies c6?

III The Right of the Strongest '8

IV Slavery 9

V That we must always go back to a first Convention . , 13 >
VI The Social Compact .14

VII The Sovereign 16

VIII The Civil State 18

IX Real Property 19

Book II '

Which treats of legislation,

I That Sovereignty is inalienable 22

II That Sovereignty is indivisible 23

III Whether the general Will is fidlible 25

IV The Limits of the Sovereign Power 26

V The Right of Life and Death 30

VI Law .32

VII The Legislator 35

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xlvi Contents

CHAF. r^cic

VIII The People 3$

IX The People {continued) 40

X The People {continued) 42

XI The yarious Systems of L^islation 45

XII The Division of the Laws 47

Book III

H^ich treats of political laws, that is to say, rf the form of
government,

1 Government in General 49

II The constituent Principle in the various P^orms qH Govern-
ment • . 54

III The Division of Governments 56

IV Democracy 57

V Aristocracy . . 59

VI Monarchy 61

VII Mixed Governments 67

VIII That all Forms of Government do not suit all Countries 68

IX The Marks of a good Government 73

X The Abuse of Government and its Tendency to Degenerate <2|H

XI The Death of the Body Politic 77

XII How the Sovereign Authority maintains itself. 78

XIII How the Sovereign Authority maintains itself {continued) 79

XIV How the Sovereign Authority maintains itself {continued) . 81
XV Deputies or Representatives .82

XVI That the Institution of Government is not a Cohtract . 85

XVII The Institution of Government 86

XVIII How to check the Usurpations of Government . . 88

Book IV

Which trecUs further of political laws and sets forth the
means of strengthening the Constitution of the State,

I That the general Will is indestructible .... 90

II Voting 92

III Elections 95

IV The Roman Comitia 97

V The Tribunate 106

VI The DicUtorship 108

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Contents xlvii

CHAI». PAC»

VII The Censorship iii

VIII Civil Religion 113

IX Conclusion

A DISCOURSE ON THE ARTS AND SCIENCES . . 125
A DISCOURSE ON THE ORIGIN OF INEQUALITY . 155
A DISCOURSE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY . . .247

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THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL
RIGHT

Foederis zquas
Dicamus leges. (Vergil, JBmid XI^

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"■^

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-ir

►

FOREWORD

This little treatise is part of a longer work which 1
began years ago without realising my limitations, and
long since abandoned. Of the various fragments that
might have been extracted from what I wrote, this is the
most considerable, and, I think, the least unworthy of
being offered to the public. The rest no longer exists.

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BOOK I

I MEAN to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be
any sure and legitimate rule of administration, men bein^
taken as they are and laws as they might be. In this
inquiry I shall endeavour always to unite what right
sanctions with what is prescribed by interest, in order
that justice and utility may in no case be divided.

I enter upon my task without proving the importance
of the subject I shall be asked if I am a prince or a
legislator, to write on politics. I answer that I am
neither, and that is why I do so. If I were a prince or a
legislator, I should not waste time in saying what wants
doing; I should do it, or hold my peace.

As I was born a citizen of a free State, and a member
of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence
my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting
on them makes it my duty to study them : and I am happy,
when I reflect upon governments, to find my inquiries
always furnish me with new reasons for loving that of
my own country.

CHAPTER I

SUBJECT OF THE FIRST BOOK

Man is born free ; and everywhere he is in chains. One
thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a
greater slave than they. How did this change come about?
I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That
question I think I can answer.

If I took into account only force, and the effects derived
from it, I should say: "As long as a people is compelled
to obey, and obeys, it does well ; as soon as it can shake
off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for,

5 ^

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The Social Contract

regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away,
either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no
justification for those who took it away." But the social
order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other
rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from
nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions.
Before coming to that, I have to prove what I have just
asserted.

CHAPTER II

THB FIRST SOCIETIES

The most ancient of all societies, and the only one that
^ is ^patnrah is the family : and even so the children remain
attached to the father only so long as they need him for
their preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the
natural bond is dissolved. The children, released from
the obedience they owed to the father, and the father,
released from the cafe he owed his children, return equally
to independence. ^Tf they remain united, they continue so
no longer naturally, but voluntarily; and the family itself
i$ then maintained only by conventicy;!^

This common liberty results from ♦^^^^^tliff o^ "'^
H ia ^first law is to provide f^r ^^'^ "WH p''^*'^;'yat'^"i, his
first cares are those" which" he owes to nimseffrand, as
soon as he reaches years of discretion, he is the sole
judge of the proper means of preserving himself, and
consequently becomes his own master.

The family then may be called the first model of political
societies : the ruler correspond^ to the father, and the
people to the children ; and all, being born free and equal,
alienate their liberty only for their own advantage. The
whole difference is that, in the family, the love of the
father for his children repays him for the care he takes
of them, while, in the State, the pleasure of commanding
takes the place of the love which the chief cannot have
for the peoples under him.

Grotius denies that all human power is established in
favour of the governed, and quotes slavery as an example.
His usual method of reasoning is constantly to establish

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The Social Contract 7

right by fact.^ It would be possible to employ a more
logical method, but none could be more favourable to
tyrants.

It is then, according to Grotius, doubtful whether tlie
human race belongs to a hundred men, or that hundred
men to the human race : and, throughout his book, he
seems to incline to the former alternative, which is also
the view of Hobbes. On this showing, the human species
is divided into so many herds of cattle, each with its
ruler, who keeps guard over them for the purpose of
devouring them.

As a shepherd is of a nature superior to that of his
flock, the shepherds of men, i. e. their rulers, are of a
nature superior to that of the peoples under them. Thus,
Philo tells us, the Emperor Caligula reasoned, concluding
equally well either that kings were gods, or that men were
beasts.

The reasoning of Caligula agrees with that of Hobbes
and Grotius. Aristotle, before any of them, had said that
men are by no means equal naturally, but that some are
born for slavery, and others for dominion.

Aristotle was right; but he took the effect for the cause.
Nothing can be more certain than that every man born in
slavery is born for slavery. Slaves lose everything in /
their chains, even the desire of escaping from them : they
love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved
their brutish condition.^ If then there are slaves by
nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature.
Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice per-
petuated the condition.

I have said nothing of King Adam, or Emperor Noah,
father of the three great monarchs who shared out the
universe, like the children of Saturn, whom some scholars
have recognised in them. I trust to getting due thanks
for my moderation; for, being a direct descendant of one
of these princes, perhaps of the eldest branch, how do I
know that a verification of titles might not leave me the

^ '' Learned inauiries into public right are often only the history ofpast
abuses ; and trouoling to study them too deeply is a profitless infatuation "
{Essay tm the Interests of France in Relation to its Neighbours, by the
Marquis d'Argenson). This is exactly what Grotius has done.

* See a short treatise of Plutarch's entitled " That Animals Reason."

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8 The Social Contract

legitimate king of the human race? In any case, there
can be no doubt that Adam was sovereign of the world,
as Robinson Crusoe was of his island, as long as he was
its only inhabitant; and this empire had the advantage
that the monarch, safe on his throne, had no rebellions,
wars, or conspirators to fear.

CHAPTER III Jt}i

THE RIGHT OF THE STRONGEST V^

The strongest is never strong enough to be alwpiys the

master, unless he transforms strength into rignt, and

obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest,

which, though to all seeming meant ironically, is really

laid down as a fundamental principle. But are we never

to have an explanation of this phrase? Force i^^ajphygic^

^ powe r, and I fail to ^ee what rnqral 'eff ect" it can have*

^^ ^Toj yJ dcT to force is ap --^^^ of nPfi^^sJt Y^ not of will — at

*^ : the mqstj^jLn.jaft of j;miUfijQi:^^^_Jn wh§t^sense can it beji

^ duYy? ^^ " "* ^ ""

Suppose for a moment that this so-called " right " exists.
I maintain that the sole result is a mass of inexplicable
nonsense. For, if force creates right, the effect changes
with the cause : every force that is greater than the first
succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey
with impunity, disobedience is legitimate ; and, the strong-
est being always in the right, the only thing that matters
is to act so as to become the strongest. But what kind
of right is that which perishes when force fails? If we
must obey perforce, there is no need to obey because we
ought ; and if we are not forced to obey, we are under no
obligation to do so. Clearly, the word " right " adds
nothing to force: in this connection, it means absolutely
nothing.

Obey the powers that be. If this means yield to force,
it is a good precept, but superfluous : I can answer for
its never being violated. All power comes from God, I
admit ; but so does all sickness : does that mean that we
are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises

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The Social Contract 9

me at the edge of a wood : must I not merely surrender
my purse on compulsion ; but, even if I could withhold it,
am I in conscience bound to give it up? For certainly the
pistol he holds is also a power.

Let us then admit that force docs not create right, and
that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers. In
that case, my original question recurs.

CHAPTER IV

SLAVERY

Since n o man has a natural authority ^o ^geiLJiis-f^llQw^
and force creates no rig^ht. we must conclude that con-
ventions for m tEe basis oTall legitimate iiuthority among
men.

' IFan individual, says Grotius, can alienate his liberty
and make himself the slave of a master, why could not a
whole people do the same and make itself subject to a
king? There are in this passage plenty of ambiguous
words which would need explaining; but let us confine
ourselves to the word alienate. To alienate is to give or
to sell. Now, a man who becomes the slave of another
does not give himself; he sells himself, at the least for
his subsistence: but for what does a people sell itself?
A king is so far from furnishing his subjects with their
subsistence that he gets his own only from them; and,
according to Rabelais, kings do not live on nothing. Do
subjects then give their persons on condition that the
king takes their goods also? I fail to see what they have
left to preserve.

It will be said that the despot assures his subjects civil
tranquillity. Granted ; but what do they gain, if the wars
his ambition brings down upon them, his insatiable avidity,
and the vexatious conduct of his ministers press harder on
them than their own dissensions would have done? What
do they gain, if the very tranquillity they enjoy is one of
their miseries? Tranquillity is found also in dungeons;
but is that enough to make them desirable places to live
in? The Greeks imprisoned in the cave of the Cyclops

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lo The Social Contract

lived there very tranquilly, while they were awaiting their
turn to be devoured.

To say that a man gives himself gratuitously, is to say
what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and
illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is
out of his mind. To say the same of a whole people is
to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no
right.

Even if each man could alienate himself, he could not
alienate his children : they are born men and free ; their
liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right
to dispose of it. Before they come to years of discretion,
the father can, in their name, lay down conditions for
their preservation and well-being, but he cannot give them ,
irrevocably and without conditions : such a gift is contrary i^^
to the ends of nature, and pypff^Hg tihlS Hght^ f?f P^tf^5?'^YiVr^ i
It would therefore be necessary, in order to legitimise
an arbitrary government, that in every generation the
people should be in a position to accept or reject it; but,
were this so, the government would be no longer arbitrary.
jQ^o renoungsjiberty is to renounce being a man, to
^^^Burrender th ^jrig K^ of humanity and even its duties. For
f^^^ him who renOTTices everything no indemnity is possible.
Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature;
to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality -
from his acts. Finally, it is an empty and contradictory
convention that sets up, on the one side, absolute
authority, and, on the other, unlimited obedience. Is
it not clear that we can be under no obligation to a person
from whom we have the right to exact everything? Does
not this condition alone, in the absence of equivalence or
exchange, in itself involve the nullity of the act? For
what right can my slave have against me, when all that
; he has belongs to me, and, his right being mine, this
right of mine against myself is a phrase devoid of
meaning?

Grotius and the rest find in war another origin for the
so-called right of slavery. The victor having, as they
hold, the right of killing the vanquished, the latter can
buy back his life at the price of his liberty; and this
convention is the more legitimate because it is to the
advantage of. both parties.

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The Social Contract ii

But it is clear that this supposed right to kill the con-
quered is by no means deducible from the state of war.
Men, from the mere fact that, while they are living in
their primitive independence, they have no mutual relations ,
stable enough to constitute either the state of peace or ;
the state of war, cannot "be naturally enemies. War is
constituted by a relation between things, and not between
persons ; and, as the state of war cannot arise out of
simple personal relations, but only out of real relations,;
private war, or war of man with man, can exist neither'^
in the state of nature, where there is no constant property, \
nor in the social state, where everything is under the /
authority of the laws.

Individual combats, duels and encounters, are acts which
cannot constitute a state; while the private wars, author-
ised by the Establishments of Louis IX, King of France,
and suspended by the Peace of God, are abuses of
feudalism, in itself an absurd system if ever there was^
one, and contrary to the principles of natural right and
[to all good polity.

War then is a relation, not between man and man, but
J between State and State, and individuals are enemies only
accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens,^ but as
soldiers; not as members of their country, but as its
defenders. Finally, each State can have for enemies only
other States, and not men; for between things disparate
in nature there can be no real relation.

Furthermore, this principle is in conformity with the
established rules of all times and the constant practice
of all civilised peoples. Declarations of war are intima-

^ The Romans, who understood and respected the right of war more than
any other nation on earth, carried their scruples on this head so fkr that a
citizen was not allowed to serve as a volunteer without engaging himsdf
expressly against the enemy, and against such and such an enemy by name.
A legion in which the younger Qito was seeing his 6rst service under
Popilius having been reconstructed, the elder Cato wrote to Popilius that,
if he wished his son to continue serving under him, he must administer to
him a new military oath, because, the first having been annulled, he was no
longer able to bear arms against the enemy. The same Cato wrote to his
son telling him to take great care not to go into battle before taking this
new oath. I know that the siege of Clusium and other isolated events can
be quoted against me ; but I am citing laws and customs. The Romans
are the people that least often transgressed its laws ; and no other people
has had such good ones.

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12 The Social Contract

tions less to powers than to their subjects. The foreigner,
whether king, individual, or people, who robs, kills or
detains the subjects, without declaring war on the prince,
is not an enemy, but a brigand. Even in real war, a just
prince, while laying hands, in the enemy's country, on all
that belongs to the public, respects the lives and goods of
individuals : he respects rights on which his own are
founded. The object of the war being the destruction of
the hostile State, the other side has a right to kill its
defenders, while they are bearing arms; but as soon as
they lay them down and surrender, they cease to be
enemies or instruments of the enemy, and become once
more merely men, whose life no one has any right to take.
Sometimes it is possible to kill the State without killing
a single one of its members ; and war gives no right which
is not necessary to the gaining of its object. These prin-
ciples are not those of Grotius : they are not based on the
authority of poets, but derived from the nature of reality
and based on reason.

The right of conquest has no foundatipn other than the
right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror
the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to
enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does
not exist No one has a right to kill an enemy except
when he cannot make him a slave, and the right to
enslave him cannot therefore be derived from the right
to kill him. It is accordingly an unfair exchange to make
him buy at the price of his liberty his life, over which the
victor holds no right. Is it not clear that there is a vicious
circle in founding the right of life and death on the right
of slavery, and the right of slavery on the right of life
and death ?

Even if we assume this terrible right to kill everybody,
I maintain that a slave made in war, or a conquered
people, is under no obligation to a master, except to
obey him as far as he is compelled to do so. By taking
an equivalent for his life, the victor has not done him a
favour ; instead of killing him without profit, he has killed
him usefully. So far then is he from acquiring over him
any authority in addition to that of force, that the state
of war continues to subsist between them : their mutual
relation is the effect of it, and the usage of the right of

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The Social Contract 13

war does not imply a treaty of peace. A convention has
indeed been made; but this convention, so far from
destroying the state of war, presupposes its continuance.

So, from whatever aspect we regard the question, the
right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegiti-
mate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The
words slave and right contradict each other, and are
mutually exclusive. It will always be equally foolish for
a man to say to a man or to a people : " I make with you
a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my
advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will
keep it as long as I like."

CHAPTER V

THAT WE MUST ALWAYS GO BACK TO A FIRST CONVENTION

Even if I granted all that 1 have been refuting, the
friends of despotism would be no better off. There will
always be a great difference between subduing a multitude
and ruling a society. Even if scattered individuals were
successively enslaved by one man, however numerous they
might be, I still see no more than a master and his slaves,
and certainly not a people and its ruler; I sec what may
be termed an aggregation, but not an association; there
is as yet neither public good nor body politic. The man
in question, even if he has enslaved half the world, is
still only an individual; his interest, apart from that of
others, is still a purely private interest. If this same man
comes to die, his empire, after him, remains scattered and
without unity, as an oak falls and dissolves into a heap
of ashes when the fire has consumed it.

A people, says Grotius, can give itself to a king. Then,
according to Grotius, a people is a people before it gives
itself. The gift is itself a civil act, and implies public
deliberation. It would be better, before examining t he
act by which a*peopie gives itseit to a kirig7"to examine
^hat/ by]^KTch if Ms become a g eop le; for this act, being
necessarTRT'lBroT ' 10" Tfi'fe ' ftT ElTer. is ' tHe Tr u^

Indeea, if there were no prior convention, where, unless
the election were unanimous, would be the obligation on

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The Social Contract

the minority to submit to the choice of the majority?

How have a hundred men who wish for a master the
/ right to vote on behalf of ten who do not? The law of
( majority voting is itself something established by con-
l vention, and presupposes unanimity, on one occasion at
\ least. %,

CHAPTER VI

THE SOCIAL COMPACT

. / I SUPPOSE men to have reached the point at which the
^|iDbstacles in the way of their preservation in the state of
^ll nature show their power of resistance to be greater than
'^Hthe resources at the disposal of each individual for his
4 U maintenance in that state. That primitive condition can
i ^ %hen subsist no longer ; and the human race would perish
■pless it changed its manner of existence.
^But, as men cannot engender new forces, but only unite
and direct existing ones, they have na other means of
preserving themselves than the formation, by aggregation,
of a sum of forces great enough to overcome the resist-
ance. These they have to bring into play by means of a
single motive power, and cause to act in concert.

This sum of forces can arise only where several persons

come together : but, as the force and liberty of each man

are the chief instruments of his self-preservation, how can

he pledge them without harming his own interests, and

i^^v neglecting the care he owes to himself? This difficulty,

}'" in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the

^^:> following terms —

- *| " The problem is to find a form of association which

j will defend and protect with the whole common force the

\ I; person and goods of each associate, and in which each,

f while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone,

I and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental

I problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution.

The clauses of this contract are so determined by the

nature of the act that the slightest modification would

make them vain and ineffective; so that, although thev

have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are

everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and

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The Social Contract 15

recognised, until, on the violation of the social compact,
each r^ains his original rights and resumes his natural
liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour of
which he renounced it.

These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to\
one — ^the total alienation of each associate, together with \
all his rights, to the whole mm^un'i^Y - for, in the first i
place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are ;
the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any /
interest in making them burdensome to others.

Moreover, the alienation being wjthout reserve , the ^
union is as perfect as it can be, anS no &^socia1e has
anything more to demand : for, if the individuals retained
certain rights, as there would be no commoq superior to
decide between them and the public, each, ^eing on one
point his own judge, would ask to be so on/all ; the state
of nature would thus continue, and the association would
necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.
OV;, Finally, each man, h pjv'np- him^^lf tnjjl^ g ives Jiini-
\J^ ' selfji^-ckobfidy > ^^^ ^s there is no associate over whom he I
doe s^ not acq uir e the same pgh^ Jiff h^ y^C^^S 9ffi#>rc..nir#>r |
himselT, Tie gamT an eauTval en^ fn^ everytt^Jng ^e l9<^i>g,
afltl an in<!:rease]of force f or the ^ resjenratLorLPf what he^
has. "''""'*' "^^ — •

If then we discard from the social compact what is not
of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the
following terms — ,X"

i**E€u:h of us puts his person and all his power in
tommon under the suiz^mc^ direction of the general will^ ^
and, in our corporate capacity^ we receive each member
as an indivisible part of^ the whole," n.

^^tjDncfi, in place of the individual personality of each \
contracting party, this act of association create s a moral >
a nd, collective bo dy, composed of as many memfiers as
the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act
its unity, its common identity, its life and its will. This
public person, so formed by the union of all other persons,
formerly took the name of city,^ and now takes that of

^ The real meaning of this word has been almost wholly lost in modem
times ; most people mistake a town for a city, and a townsman for a citizen.
They do not know that houses make a town, but citizens a city. The same
mistake long ago cost the Carthaginians dear. I have never read of the

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Republic or body politic; it is called by its members State
when passive, Sovereign when active, and Power when
compared with others like itself. Those who are associated
in it take collectively the name of people, and severally
are called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign power, and
subjects, as being under the laws of the State. But these
terms are often confused and taken one for another : it is
enough to know how to distinguish them when they are
being used with precision.

CHAPTER VII

THE SOVEREIGN

This formula shows us that the act of association com-
prises a mutual undertaking between the public and the
individuals, and that each individual^ in. making .a ronr
tract, as we may. say,, with himgfilf^ i<^ hnnT>fj jq a dout^le
capacity; as a member of,. thfi..&}tyereign hft is ^ound to
the JhcRviduals.,...and . AS A.jro^m]l)jgr pf the. State_tO^ jthe.
Sovereign. But the maxim of civil right, that no one is
"bound by undertakings made to himself, does not apply
in this case ; for there is a great difference between incur-
ring an obligation to yourself and incurring one to a whole
of which you form a part.

Attention must further be called to the fact that public
deliberation, while competent to bind all the subjects
to the Sovereign, because of the two different capaci-
ties in which each of them may be regarded, cannot,
for the opposite reason, bind the Sovereign to itself; and

title of citizens being given to the subjects of anv prince, not even the
ancient Macedonians or the English of to-day, though tney are nearer liberty
than any one else. The French alone everywhere familiarly adopt the
name of citizens, because, as can be seen from their dictionaries, they have no
idea of its meaning ; otherwise they would be guilty in usurping it, of the
crime of Use-ma/esf/ : among them, the name expresses a virtue, and not a
right. When Bodin spoke of our ddzens and townsmen, he fell into a bad •
blunder in taking the one class for the other. M. d'Alembert has avoided
the error, and, in his article on Geneva, has clearly distinguished the four
orders of men (or even five, counting mere foreigners) who dwell in our
town, of which two only compose the Republic No other French writer,
to my knowledge, has understood the real meaning of the word citizen.

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The Social Contract 17

that it is consequently against the nature of the bodyN
politic for the Sovy eign to impose on itself a law which y
it cannot infringe, Deiqg able to regard itself in only
one capacity, it is in The p ositio n of an in di vrdual wFo
makes a^goh^racf^WltlT htr n^eTfJ andH^ makes it clear
that there neither is nor can "Be any "kinJpf fundamental
law^Brffdin g^oh '^ttie Hbody of the" peopTe^not even die
social contracFitself ._ " ITiis does libt mean that the body
pioirtTc cannot enter into undertakings with others, pro-
vided the contract is not infringed by them ; for in relation
to what is external to it, it becomes a simple being, an
individual.

But the body politic or the Sovereign, drawing its being\
wholly from the sanctity of the contract, can never bind \
itself, even to an outsider, to do anything derogatory to 1
the original act, for instance, to alienate any part of itself, I
or to submit to another Sovereign. Violation of the act /
by which „ it .. fexists^woj^^.,.;feg_self-annm /

"wlilcEjs^ itself nothing "c^0_crejatfi. HfttEIog* " ^' '

-^As soon as this multitude is so united in one body, it
is impossible to offend against one of the members without
attacking the body, and still more to offend against the
body without the members resenting it. Duty and inter-
est therefore equally oblige the two contracting parties
to give each other help; and the same men should seek
to combine, in their double capacity, all the advantages
dependent upon that capacity.

Again, th e Soverei gn,^ ^^" X fo rmed wholly of the
in3Ivi3uaIs"wEo compose it, neither has nor canrtave" afty
intefesrc(5ttTfiafy*T6'thdrs; and^consequently the sovereign ^
power need gTvr-trcrgtraranteet6 'Its siibjetts^ecaus]e.iT
is irifpbs*^lble"fort!ie body to wish to hurt all its membersr
We shalTalso sefe later on that It canndTliurf any in par-
ticular. { The Sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, ^
is always what it should be.O

This, however, is not the case with the relation of the
su»cts to the Sovereign, which, despite the common
interest, would have no security that they would fulfil their
undertakings, unless it found means to assure itself of
their fidelity.

In fflrt, f'Trh ^^^^^H^al, a? J^.J^an^may have a pa r-
ticular w ill contrary or di ssimilar to the generaF wiff which

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he has as a citizen. His particula r inte rest may speak
to him quit e differently irom the w mm6n inter est : his
absolute ac Td natur auy mdegendfint existence majTmalce
him^loo k" up iSfT^whar ^
/ gra tuitous contnbutrdn;" the loss Of which Will dg less
r harm " to others than the "paJmeHl~ 6f ' it is burdensome t5^
"himself ; an3, regardingthe morarpersbn' wHIc^^
the State as 2l, persona fictcij^ because not a man, he may
wish to",enjoy' thejigh^^^^^ of citizenslil^^ T?^^

to fulfil the dutleg^d f a_ s ubject. TKe con tiniia nce ^oT slicn
g^p injngtirp f^pyl^ "^.^t prp yg th e un doing^ oftgQjioiciy
politic^.. . ^

In order then that the social compact may not be an
/ empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which
alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to
obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the
i^hole body. if This means nothing less than that he will
>fe,.fQI3;ifidLt Q_he free{[j or t hi^ is the condition wh ich,^y
i<gi vin^ eaclTcinzeir to his count ry, secures him against all
person ^ "Sep en ^ence . In this lies the key to tfie working
of the political machine ; this alone legitimises civil under-
takings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical,
and liable to the most frightful abuses.

. CHAPTER VIII

THE CIVIL STATE

T The passage from the state of nature to the civil state
produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting
j ustice, for Jnsti^QC t in his conduct, and giving his actions
the morality tliey had formerly lacked. Then only, when
the Voice of d uty takes the plac e of physicaLimPJuJses and
right of appetite, does manj! who so tar had considered
only himself, find that he is forced to act on different
principles, and to consult his reason before listening to
his inclinations. Although, in this state, he deprives him-
self of some advantages which he got from nature, he
gains in return others so great, his faculties are so stimu-
lated and developed, his ideas so extended, his feelings
so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did not

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The Social Contract 19

the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below

that which he left, he would be bound to bless continually

the happy moment which took him from it for ever, and,

instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal, made him

an intelligent being and a man.

^ Let us draw up the whole account in terms easily com-

Jy mensurable. What^g^j joses ^^y^he sQc}M contr^ cj ^ti is j iis

vy natura l liberty ^^ and an j inliroitedJrTgEt to every thing- he

Wy ti'i^I^ IgeTjnd^ icceed^^ %^^ »s

"^ o^t. are to avoid mistake in weigHu^bne agamst the other,

A^e must clearly distinguish natural liberty, which is

*iyr bounded only by the strength of the individual, from

^ civil liberty, which is limited by the general will; and

possession, which is merely the effect of force or the right

of the first occupier, from property^ which can be founded

only on a positive title.

We might, over and above all this, add, to what man
acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes
him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of
appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we
prescribe to ourselves is liberty. But I have s^lready said
too much on this head, and the philosophical meaning of
the word liberty does not now concern us.

CHAPTER IX

REAL PROPERTY

Ea ch member of the community gives himself to it^ at
the'^lHoffienT^ts fou^npjn. rust as im^ is. with all the
"^esoui'CCg^at his command, including the goods he pos-
sesses. T his act does not make possession, in changi ng
hands, chailge Its natur€7"''an3 become property liF'lTlS
hands of the Sovereign ; but, as the forces of the city are
incomparably greater than those of an individual, public
possession is also, in fact, stronger and more irrevocable,
without being any more legitimate, at any rate from the
point of view of foreigners. For the State, in relation to \
its members, is master of all their goods by the social
contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all rights ;

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20 The Social Contract

( but, in relation to other powers, it is so only by the right
Vof the first occupier, which it holds from its members.
The ri ^ht of the first ftV;r"P^^'' though more real than
the right of TR^ strongest, becomes a real right only when
/the right of property has already been established. Every
/ man has naturally a right to everything he needs ; but the
\ positive act which makes him proprietor of one thing
/ excludes him from everything else. Having his share, he
Nought to keep to it, and can have no further right against
jthe community. This is why the right of the first occupier, .
Iwhich in the state of nature is so weak, claims the respect!
joi every man in civil society. In this right we are respect-«
Zing not so m^ch what belongs to another as what doesf
Vnot belong to ourselves.

In general, to establish the right of the first occupier
over a plot of ground, the following conditions are neces-
sary : first, the land must not yet be inhabited ; secondly,
a man must occupy only the amount he needs for his
subsistence; and, in the third place, possession must be
taken, not by an empty ceremony, but by labour and
cultivation, the only sign of proprietorship that should be
respected by others, in default of a legal title.

In granting the right of first occupancy to necessity and
labour, are we not really stretching it as far as it can go?
Is it possible to leave such a right unlimited? Is it to be
enough to set foot on a plot of common ground, in order
to be able to call yourself at once the master of it? Is
it to be enough that a man has the strength to expel
others for a moment, in order to establish his right to
prevent them from ever returning? How can a man or a
people seize an immense territory and keep it from the
rest of the world except by a punishable usurpation, since
all others are being robbed, by such an act, of the place
of habitation and the means of subsistence which nature
gave them in common? When Nunez Balbao, standing
on the sea-shore, took possession of the South Seas and
the whole of South America in the name of the crown of
Castille, was that enough to dispossess all their actual
inhabitants, and to shut out from them all the princes of
the world? On such a showing, these ceremonies are
idly multiplied, and the Catholic King need only take
possession all at once, from his apartment, of the whole

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The Social Contract 21

universe, merely making a subsequent reservation about j
what was already in the possession of other princes.

We can imagine how the lands of individuals, where
they were contiguous and came to be united, became the
public territory, and how the right of Sovereignty, extend-
ing from the subjects over the lands they held, became at
once real and personal. The possessors were thus made
more dependent, and the forces at their command used to
guarantee their fidelity. The advantage of this does not
seem to have been felt by ancient monarchs, who called
themselves King of the Persians, Scythians, or Mace-
donians, and seemed to regard themselves more as rulers
of men than as masters of a country. Those of the
present day more cleverly call themselves Kings of France,
Spain, England, etc. : thus holding the land, they are
quite confident of holding the inhabitants.

The peculiar fact about this alienation is that, in taking
over the goods of individuals, the community, so far from \
despoiling them, only assures them legitimate possession, :
and changes usurpation into a true right and enjoyment into
proprietorship. Thus the possessors, being regarded as
depositaries of the public good, and having their rights'
respected by all the members of the State and maintained''
against foreign aggression by all its forces, have, by a \
cession which benefits both the public and still more
themselves, acquired, so to speak, all that they gave up. /
This paradox may easily be explained by the distinction (
between the rights which the. Sovereign and the proprietor I
have over the same estate, as we shall see later on. /

It may also happen that men begin to unite one with
another before they possess anything, and that, subse-
quently occupying a tract of counf ry which is enough for
all, they enjoy it in common, or share it out among them-
selves, either equally or according to a scale fixed by the.
Sovereign. However the acquisition be made, the right
which each individual has to his own estate is always
subordinate to the right which the community has over
all : without this, there would be neither stability in the
social tie, nor real force in the exercise of Sovereignty.

I shall end this chapter and this book by remarking on
a fact on which the whole social system should rest : i, e.
that, instead of destroying natural inequality, the funda-

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22 The Social Contract

mental compact substitutes, for such physical inequality
as nature may have set up between men, an equality that
is moral and legitimate, and that men, who may be un-
equal in strength or intelligence, become every one equal
by convention and legal right, ^

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

THAT SOVEREIGNTY IS INALIENABLE

/The first and most important deduction from the prin-

yciples we have so far laid down is that the general will

V alone can direct the State according to the object for

^ which it was instituted^ >. e. the common good : for if the

' clashing ot particular interests made the establishment

of societies necessary, the agreement of these very

-interests made it possible. Tjte^common element^ in^ these

' there no point oF agreement between them all, no society
could exist. It is solely on the basis of this common
interest that every society should be governed.

I hold then that Sovereignty, being nothing less than
the exercise of the general will, can never be alienated,
and that the Sovereign, who is no less than a collective
being, cannot be represented except by himself : the
power indeed may be transmitted, but not the will.

In reality, if it is not impossible for a particular will to
agree on some point with the general will, it is at least
impossible for the agreement to be lasting and constant;

^ Under bad goveroments, this ejquality is only apparent and iUusory : it
serves only to keep the pauper in his poverty and the rich man in the posi-
tion he has usurped. In fact, laws are always of use to those who possess
and harmful to those who have nothing : from which it follows that the
social state is advantageous to men only when all have something and none
too much.

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The Social Contract 23

for the particular will tends, by its very nature, to partial-
ity, while the general will tends to equality. It is even more
impossible to have any guarantee of this agreement; for
even if it should always exist, it would be the effect not of
art, but of chance. The Sovereign may indeed say : " I A
now will actually what this man wills, or at least what he /
says he wills " ; but it cannot say : " What he wills to- (
morrow, I too shall will " because it is absurd for the wMl >
to bind itself for the future, nor is it incumbent on any [
will to consent to anything that is not for the good of the |
being who wills. If then the people promises simply to i
obey, by that very act it dissolves itself and loses what I
makes it a people; the moment a master exists, there is )
no longer a Sovereign, and from that moment the body/
politic has ceased to exist.

This does not mean that the commands of the rulers >^
cannot pass for general wills ^ so long as the Sovereign, |
being free to oppose them, offers no opposition. In such /
a case, universal silence is taken to imply the consent oy
the people. This will be explained later on.

CHAPTER II

THAT SOVEREIGNTY IS INDIVISIBLE

Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it inalien-
able, is indivisil^le ; for will either is, or is not, general ; ^
it is the will eitSer of the body of the people, or only of
a part of it. In the first case, the will, when declared,
is an act of Sovereignty and constitutes law : in the
second, it is merely a particular will, or act of magistracy
— at the most a decree.

But our political theorists, unable to divide Sovereignty
in principle, divide it according to its object: into force
and will ; into legislative power and executive power ; into
rights of taxation, justice and war; into internal adminis-
tration and power of foreign treaty. Sometimes they
confuse all these sections, and sometimes they distinguish

^ To be general, a will need not always be unanimous ; bat every vote
must be counted : any exclusion is a breach of generality.

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24 The Social Contract

them; they turn the Sovereign into a fantastic being
composed of several connected pieces : it is as if they
were making man of several bodies, one with eyes, one
with arms, another with feet, and each with nothing
besides. We are told that the jugglers of Japan dis-
member a child before the eyes of &e spectators; then
they throw all the members into the air one after another,
and the child falls down alive and whole. The conjuring
tricks of our political theorists are very like that; they
first dismember the body politic by an illusion worthy of
a fair, and then join it together again we know not how.

This error is due to a lack of exact notions concerning
the Sovereign authority, and to taking for parts of it what
are only emanations from it. Thus, for example, the acts
of declaring war and making peace have been regarded
as acts of Sovereignty; but this is not the case, as these
acts do not constitute law, but merely the application of
a law, a particular act which decides how the law applies,
as we shall see clearly when the idea attached to the word
law has been defined.

If we examined the other divisions in the same manner,
we should find that, whenever Sovereignty seems to be
divided, there is an illusion : the rights which are taken
as being part of Sovereignty are really all subordinate,
and always imply supreme wills of which they only
sanction the execution.

It would be impossible to estimate the obscurity this
lack of exactness has thrown over the decisions of writers
who have dealt with political right, when they have used
the principles laid down by them to pass judgment on
the respective rights of kings and peoples. Every one
can see, in Chapters III and IV of the First Book of
Grotius, how the learned man and his translator, Bar-
beyrac, entangle and tie themselves up in their own
sophistries, for fear of saying too little or too much of
what they think, and so offending the interests they have
to conciliate. Grotius, a refugee in France, ill-content
with his own country, and desirous of paying his court
to Louis XIII, to whom his book is dedicated, spares no
pains to rob the peoples of all their rights and invest
kings with them by every conceivable artifice. This
would also have been much to the tast'e of Barbeyrac, who

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The Social Contract 25

dedicated his translation to George I of England. But
unfortunately the expulsion of James II, which he called
his "abdication," compelled him to use all reserve, to
shuffle and to tergiversate, in order to avoid making
William out a usurper. If these two writers had adopted
the true principles, all difficulties would have been re-
moved, and they would have been always consistent; but
it would have been a sad truth for them to tell, and would
have paid court for them to no-one save the people.
Moreover, truth is no road to fortune, and the people
dispenses neither ambassadorships, nor professorships,
nor pensions.

CHAPTER III

WHETHER THE GENERAL WILL IS FALLIBLE

It follows from what has gone before that the general ',
will is always right and tends to the public advantage;
but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people
are always equally correct. Our will is always for our
own good, but" we 716 not always see what that is; the
people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on "^
such occasions only does it Beem to will what is' bad.

There is often a great deal of diflference between the
will of all and the general will; the latter considers only
the common interest, while the former takes private
interest into account, and is no more than a sum of
particular wills : but take away from these same wills
the pluses and minuses that cancel one another,^ and the ^
general will remains as the sum of the differences.

If, when the people, b eing furnished with adequa te
information, held its deliberations, tlie citizens hadno
C(51iaimiilCation one with another, the grand total of the
small differences would always give the general will, and

* ," Every interest," says the Marquis d'Argenson, •* has different f)rinci-
ples;v The agreement of two particular interests is formed by opposition to
a third.'* He might have added that the i^reement of all interests is
formed by opposition to that of each. If there were no different interests,
the common interest would be barely felt, as it would encounter no
obstacle ; all would go on of its own accord, and politics would cease to
be an art.

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26 The Social Contract

/the decision would always be good. But when factions
/ arise, and partial associations are formed at the expense
i of the great association, the will of each of these associa-
tions becomes general in relation to its members, while it'
remains particular in relation to the State : it may then
be said that there are no longer as many votes as there
are men, but only as many as there are associations. The
differences become less numerous and give a less general
result. Lastly, when one of these associations is so great
as to prevail over all the rest, the result is no longer a
^ sum of small differences, but a single difference; in this
\ case there is no longer a general will, and the opinion
which prevails is purely particular.

It is therefore essential, if the general will is to be able
to express itself, that there should be no partial society
V within the State, and that each citizen should think only
his own thoughts : * which was indeed the sublime and
unique system established by tjie great Lycurgus. But
if there are partial societies, it is best to have as many as
possible and to prevent them from ))eing unequal, as was
done by Solon, Numa and Servius. These precautions
are the only ones that can guarantee that the general will
shall be always enlightened, and tl^at the people shall in
no way deceive itself. ^^

CHAPTER IV

THE LIMITS OF THE SOVEREIGN POWER

If the State is a moral person whose life is in the union

of its members, and if the most important of its cares is

the care for its own preservation, it must have a unixftj:sal

w and compelling jForce, in ordej Lto'mov^ and disRosfii ^3ch

V part " as^ niay c)eL joiost aHvantageous to the whole. As

^ nature gives each man absolute power over all his

^ " In fact," says Macchiavelli, " there are some divisions that are harm-
ful to a Republic and some that are advantageous. Those which stir up
sects and parties are harmful ; those attended by neither are advantageous.
Since, then, the founder of a Republic cannot help enmities arising, he ought
at least to prevent them from growing into sects " {Histoty of Florence^
Book vii). [Rousseau quotes the Italian.]

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The Social Contract 27

members, the social compact gives the body politic abso-
lute power over all its members also; and it is this power
which, under the direction of the general will, bears, as I
have said, the name of Sovereignty.

But, besides the public person, we have to consider the
private persons composing it, whose life and liberty are
naturally independent of it. We are bound then to dis-
tinguish clearly between the respective rights of the
citizens and the Sovereign,^ and between the duties the /
former have to fulfil as subjects, and the natural rights
they should enjoy as men.

Each man alienates, I admit, by the social compact,
only such part of his powers, goods and, Jiberty as it is
im portan t for the community to control; but it must also
be granted that the "Sovereign is s ole j udjge of jylvn^ '^
important. "*

Htef5^ service a citizen can render the State he ought
to render as soon as the Sovereign demands it; but the
Sovereign, for its part, cannot impose upon its subjects
any fetters that are useless to the community, nor can it
even wish to do so ; for no more by the law of reason than
by the law of nature can anything occur without a cause.

The undertakings wftich l^ind us to the social body

are obli^atorv ^p^y hpr<ancA »hi>y ar^ mutual; and

their nature is such that in fulfilling them J9 vc cannot
work for others without working for ourselves. Why
IS It that tne general win is always in the right, and that
all continually will the happiness of each one, unless
it is because there is not a man who does not think
of "each '* as meaning him, and consider himself in voting
for all? This proves that e quality of rights and t^f> iHpa
of justice which such equality creates originate in th e
preiereric <* ftarTTm an pives to nimseit. and accoraingiy in
ithe very nature of man^ It proves that the general will,
to be really such, must be general in its object as well as
its essence; that it must both come from all and apply
to all; and that it loses its natural rectitude when it
is directed to some particular and determinate object,
because in such a case we are judging of something

^ Attentive readers, do not, I pray, be in » hurry to charge me with con-
tradicting myself. The terminology made it unavoidable, considering the
poverty of the language ; but wait and see.

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28 The Social Contract

foreign to us, and have no true principle of equity to
guide us.

Indeed, as soon as a question of particular fact or right
arises on a point not previously regulated by a general
convention, the matter becomes (^ntentioCs. It is a case
in which the individuals concerned are one party, and the
public the other, but in which I can see neither the law
that ought to be fo%wcd nor the judge who ought to give
the decision. In such a case, it would be absurd to pro-
pose to refer the question to an express decision of the
general will, which can be only the conclusion reached by
one of the parties and in consequence will be, for the other
party, merely an external and particular will, inclined on
this occasion to injustice and subject to error. Thus, just
as a particular will cannot stand for the general will, the
general will, in turn, changes its nature, when its object
is particular, and, as eeneral, cannot pronounce on a jnan
or a fact. When, for instance, the people of Athens
nominated or displaced its rulers, decreed honours to one,
and imposed penalties on another, and, by a multitude
ofj^ar ^j^ ^ ylar Hftgyp^ pffj^ exerciscd all the functions of govern-
ment indiscriminately, it had in such cases no longer a
general will in the strict sense ; it was acting no longer as
Sovereign, but as magistrate. This will seem contrary
to current views; but I must be given time to expound
my own.

It should be seen from the foregoing that what makes
the will general is less the number of voters than the
,. £ommon inte re st uniting them; to r^ under this system^
ea ch necessarily submits to the conditions he im posef; nn
2BKersi and this admirable agreement between interest j
and justice gives to the common deliberations an equitable j
character which at once vanishes when any particular i
question is discussed, in the absence of a common interest
to unite and identify the ruling of the judge with that of
the party.

From whatever side we approaclj. our principle, we

reach the same conclusion, that »h^ cn/^ia] pompact sets

_ up among the citizens an equalitv of such a kind , that

'U\fy ^^^ ^'"^ thAmft#>1v<>g tn nbgAfvp flip eora^ pQnilj^"^*^

aru^]\nu}i\ thffyef ore all eniov the same right s. Thus,
fronTthe very nature of the compact, every act of Sove- ^

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The Social Contract 29

reignty, ». e. every authentic act of the general will, binds
or favours all the citizens equally; so £at the Sovereign
recognises only the body of the nation, and draws no
distinctions be^een those of whom it is made up. What,
then, strictly speakings is an %ict of Sovereignty? It is
not a convention between i superior and an inferior, but
a coqve ntinn >>y tween the body and each of its me nrih^rs.^
It is legitimate, because based on tht social contract, an^
equitable, because common to ai i} Ubtful, bttau&t 'ir'caii
h ave no other object than the yeneral good, and stable^
because guaranteed by the public force and the supreme
power. So long as tiie subjects have to submit only to
conventions of this sort, they obey op-one._bul ^eir_ own !
wilh^jind ^to askJiow Farni )? ffisp^^tT ye^T^gbS'nprjli el
Sovereign"^ and the^ dtiz en^.cxtend»JiS"^t^^
pdinfTii6^Tatter"^cah enter into undertakings with them-
selves, each with all, and all with each.

We can see from this that t l^e sover ftigt) pnwpr^ abso-
lute, sacred and inviolable as it is, does not and cannot
. exceed the limits of general conventions, a nd tnat every
man may dispose at will of such «goods and liberty as
these conventions leave him ; so that the Sovereign never
has a right to lay more charges on one subject than on
another, because, in that case, the question becomes
particular, and ceases to be within its competency.

When these distinctions have once been admitted, it is
seen to be so untrue that there is, in the social contract,
any real renunciation on the part of the individuals, that
the position in which they find themselves as a result of
the contract is really preferable to that in which they were
before. Instead of a renunciation, they have made an
advantageous exchange : instead of an uncertain and pre-
carious way of living they have got one that is better and
more secure; instead of natural independence they have
got liberty, instead of the powe» to harm others security
for themselves, and instead of their strength, which others
might overcome, a ^^M ^^^^^^ ^rrm] 'inif^'^ "lalf*^'' in
vincible. Their very life, which they have devoted to the
State, IS by it constantly protected ; and when they risk it
in the State's defence, what more are they doing than
giving back what they have received from it? What are
they doing that they would not do more often and with

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greater danger in the state of nature, in which they would
inevitably have to fight battles at the peril of their lives in
defence of that which is the means of their preservation ?
A^LhfY^: injf>tf>H tn fjgrht w hen their country needs them;
,:6i^thei< no one has ever to flgft*^ fr^r tiimcf^ff rir. «ro ^^^
gam someuiing: by running, on behalf of what gives us
our security, only some of the risks we should have to run
for ourselves, as soon as we lost it?

CHAPTER V

THfi RIGHT OF LIFE AND DEATH

The question is often asked how individuals, having
no^ right to dispose of their own lives, can transfer to the
Sovereign a right which they do not possess. The diffi-
culty of answering this question seems to me to lie in its
being wrongly stated. Every man has a right to risk his
own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever, been said
that a man who throws himself out of the window to
escape from a fire is guilty of suicide ? Has such a crime
ever been laid to the charge of him who perishes in a
storm because, when he went on board, he knew of the
danger?

The social treaty has for its end the preservation of the
contracting parties. u}e who wills the end wills the means
also, and the means \must involve some risks, and eve;^
some losses. He who wishes to preserve his life at others^
expense should also, when it is necessary, be ready to give I
it up for their sake. Furthermore, the citizen is no longer'
the judge of the dangers to which the law desires him
to expose himself ; and when the prince says to him : "It
is expedient for the State that you should die," he ought
to die, because it is only on that condition that he has been
living in security up to the present, and because his life is
no longer a mere bounty of nature, but a gift made
conditionally by the State.

The death-penalty inflicted upon criminals may be looked
on in much the same light : it is in order that we may not
fall victims to an assassin that we consent to die if we
ourselves turn assassins. In this treaty, so far from dis-

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The Social Contract 31

posing of our own lives, we think only of securing them,
and it is not to be assumed that any of the parties then
expects to get hanged.

Again, fiverv mal efactor^ by flttarkinp- snrinl rlg-hts.
becomes on forfeit a rebel and a traitor to his country ;
by violating its laws he ceases to be a member of it; he
even makes war upon it. In such a case the preservation
of the State is inconsistent with his own, and one or the
other must perish ; in putting the guilty to death, we slay y
not so much the citizen as an..£iifim^ The trial and the
judgment are the proofs tfeat he has broken the social
treaty^ and is in consequence no longer a member of the
State. Since, then, he has recognised himself to be such
by living there, he must be removed by exile as a violator
of the compact, or by death as a public enemy; for such
an enemy is not a moral person, but merely a man ; and in
such a case tl^e right of war is to kill the vanq ^js^^^

But, it will be said, the condemnation of a criminal is
a particular act. I admit it : but such condemnation is
not a function of the Sovereign ; it is a right the Sovereign
can confer without being able itself to exert it. AJ|,„my V
ideas_are consistent, but I cannot expound them all at

We may add that frequent punishments are always a
sign of weakness or remissness on the part of the govern-
ment. There is not a single ill-doer who could not be
turned to some good. The State has no right to put to
death, even for die sake of making an example, any one
whom it can leave alive without danger.

The right of pardoning or exempting the guilty from
a penalty imposed by the law and pronounced by the
juc^e belongs only to the authority which is sup^nor tn
both judge and law, t^eTthe Sovereign; even its right in
this matter is tar trom clear, and the cases for exercising
it are extremely rare. In a well-governed State, there are
few punishments, not because there are many pardons,
but because criminals are rare; it is when a State is in
decay that the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of im-
punity. Under the Roman Republic, neither the Senate
nor the Consuls ever attempted to pardon ; even the people
never did so, though it sometimes revoked i|^ own
decision. Frequent pardons mean that crime wilt soon

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32 The Social Contract-

need them no longer, and no-one can help seeing whither
that leads. But I feel my heart protesting and restraining
my pen ; let us leave these questions to the just man who
has never offended, and would himself stand in no -need of
pardon.

CHAPTER VI

LAW

By the social compact we ha vft fyivpp ^^^fi ^nHy-pnnf;^
existence and life: we have now by legislation to give it

^ T)ody is formed and united still in no respect determines
what it ought to do for its preservation.

What is well and in conformity with nrder is so by the
ng^ fnrp n f ^^''^gfg ^«^^ independently of human conventions.
V An jiiQtire ri^rnf^^ ^rr^^ fjn^, who IS its sole source ! but
if we knew how to receive so high an mspiration, we
should need neither government nor laws. Doubtless,
there is a universal justice emanating from reason algne. ;
but this justice, to be admitted among us, must be mutual.
Humanly speaking, in default of natural sanctions, the
Jaws of justice are ineffef ^^^ivft amnng mon » they merely
iii^ke for the good of the wicked and the undoing of the
just, when the just man observes them towards everybody
and nobody observes them towards him. Conventions and
laws are therefore needed to join rights to duties and refer
justice to its object. InJhcJ^tateof nature, where every^ ,
thin^ is onmman^ T owe nothing lu 'hhii whom 1 have
promised nothing ; I recognise as belonging to others cnly
what is of no use to me. In the state of society all rights
are fixed by law, and the case becomes different.

But what, after all, is a law? As long as we remain

satisfied with attaching purely metaphysical ideas to the

word, we shall go on arguing without arriving at an

understanding ; and when we have defined a law of nature,

/ we shall be no nearer the definition of a law of the State.

I have already said that >hprp ra^ hp nn gi^nPi-^j xyj]]
Hirprtp^ tn a paft^^"^^*- r^^Y^-^ Such an objcct must be
either within or outside the State. If outside, a will
which is alien to it cannot be, in relation to it, general;

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The Social Contract 33

if within, it is part of the State, and in that case there
arises a relation between whole and part which makes
them two separate beings, of which the part is one, and
the whole«minus the part the other. But the whole minus
a part caftnot be the whole; and while this relation
persists, there can be no whole, but only two unequal
parts; and it follows that the will of one is no longer in
any respect general in relation to the other.

But when 3ie whole people decrees for the whole people,

it is considering only itself; and if a relation is then

formed, it is between two aspects of the entire object,

without there being any division of the whole. In that

case the matter atx)ut which the decree is made is, like

^e decreeing wiU^ general. This act is what I call a law .

WKen I say that the object ollaws is always general,

I mean that law considers subjects en masse and actions

in th^ abstract, and never a particular person or action.

|"Thus the law may indeed decree that there shall be privi-

i leges, but cannot confer them on anybody by name. It

j may set up several classes of citizens, and even lay down

the qualifications for membership of these classes, but it

cannot nominate such and such persons as belonging to

I them ; it may establish a monarchical^ government and

\ hereditary succession, but it cannot choose a king, or

I nominate a royal family. In a word, no function which

[has a particular object belongs to the legislative power.

On this view, we at once see that it can no longer be
asked whose business it is to make laws, since they are
^cts of the general wil l! nor whether the prince is above
the law, since he is a member of the State; nor whether
the law can be unjust, since no one is unjust to himself;
nor how we can be both free and subject to tne laws , since
they are but registers of our wills.

We see lurther that, as the law unites universality of
will with universality of object, what a man, whoever he
be, commands of his own motion cannot be a law; and
even what the Sovereign commands with regard to a
particular matter is no nearer being a law, but is a decree,
an act, not of sovereignty, but of magistracy.

I therefore give the name * Republic ' to every State
that is governed by laws, no matter what the form of its
administration may be : for only in such a case does the

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34 The Social Contract

public interest govern, and the res publica rank as a
reality. Every legitimate government is republican ; ^
what government is I will explain later on.

Laws are, properly speaking, only the conditions of
civil association. 'EfajEL jieopley being subject to tly^, laws^
ou^ht to be their iuthor ; the conditions o f tfi#> cf^pi^ty
^npht ^^ ^^ pgi^^^^ed solely by thnsft whn rnmA fn^fjth^x
to form it. But how are they to regulate them? Is it to
be by common agreement, by a sudden inspiration? Has
the body politic an organ to declare its will? Who can
give it the foresight to formulate and announce its acts
in advance? Or how is it to announce them in the hour
of need? How can a blind multitude, which often does
not know what it wills, because it rarely knows what is
good for it, carry out for itself so great and difficult an
enterprise as a system of legislation? Of itself the people
wills always the good, but of itself it by no means always
sees it. The general will is always _in the right, but t he
judgment whicn guides it is not always enlightened. '' It
must be got to see objects as they are, and sometimes as
they ought to appear to it; it must be shown the good
road it is in search of, secured from the seductive in-
fluences of individual wills, taught to see times and spaces
as a series, and made to weigh the attractions of present
and sensible advantages against the danger of distant and
hidden evils. The individuals see the good they reject;
the public wills the good it does not see. All stand equally
in need of guidance. The former must be compelled to
bring their wills into conformity with their reason; the
latter must be taught to know what it wills. If that is
done, public enlightenment leads to the union of under-
standing and will in the social body: the parts are made
to work exactly together, and the whole is raised to its
highest power. This makes a legislator necessary.

* I understand by this word, not merely an aristocracy or a democracy,
but generally any government directed by the general will, which is the
law. To be legitimate, the government must be, not one with the
Sovereign, but its minister. In such a case even a monarchy is a Republic.
This will be made clearer in the following book.

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The Social Contract 35

CHAPTER VII

THE LEGISLATOR

In order fn HiRmver the rules of snriety best suite^
to nations, a superior intelligence beholding all the pas-
sions of men without experiencing any of mem would be
needed. This intelligence would have to be wholly un-
related to our nature, while knowing it through and
through; its happiness would have to be independent of
us, and yet ready to occupy itself with ours; and lastly,
it would have, in the march of time, to look forward to a
distant glory, and, working in one century, to be able
to enjoy in the next.^ It would take gods to give men
laws.

What Caligula argued from the facts, Plato, in the
dialogue called the Politicus, argued in defining the civil
or kingly man, on the basis of right. But if great princes
are rare, how much more so are great legislators? The
former have only to follow the pattern which the latter
have to lay down. The legislator is the engineer who
invents the machine, the prince merely the mechanic who
sets it up and makes it go. "At the birth of societies,"
says Montesquieu, "the rulers of Republics establish
institutions, and afterwards the institutions mould the
rulers." «

He who dares to undertake the making of a people's
institutions ought to feel himself capable, so to speak, of
changing human nature, of transforming each individual,
who is by himself a complete and solitary whole, into part
of a greater whole from which he in a manner receives
his life and being; of altering man's constitution for the
purpose of strengthening it; and of substituting a partial
and moral existence for the physical and independent
existence nature has conferred on us all. He must, in a
word, take away from man his own resources and give him
instead new ones alien to him, and incapable of being
made use of without the help of other men. The more

^ A people becomes famous only when its l^islation begins to decline. .
We do not know for how many centuries the system of Lycurgus made the
Spirtans happy before the rest of Greece took any notice of it.

* Montesquieu, T^ GrecUness and Decadence of the Romans, ch. i.

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36 The Social Contract

completely these natural resources are annihilated, the
greater and the more lasting are those which he acquires,
and the more stable and perfect the new institutions; so
that if each citizen is nothing and can do nothing without
the rest, and the resources acquired by the whole are
equal or superior to the aggregate of the resources of
all the individuals, it may be said that legislation is at the
highest possible point of perfection.

The legislator occupies in every respect an extraordinary
position in the State. If he should do so by reason of his
genius, he does so no less by reason of his office, which
is neither magistracy, nor Sovereignty. This office, which
sets up the Republic, nowhere enters into its constitution ;
it is an individual and superior function, which has nothing
in common with human empire; for if he who holds
command over men ought not to have command over
the laws, he who has command over the laws ought not
any more to have it over men; or else his laws would be
the ministers of his passions and would often merely serve
to perpetuate his injustices : his private aims would
inevitably mar the sanctity of his work.

When Lycurgus gave laws to his country, he. began
by resigning the throne. It was the custom of most
Greek towns to entrust the establishment of their laws to
foreigners. The Republics of modern Italy in many cases
followed this example; Geneva did the same and profited
by it.^ Rome, when it was most prosperous, suffered a
revival of all the crimes of tyranny, and was brought to
the verge of destruction, because it put the legislative
authority and the sovereign power into the same hands.

Nevertheless, the decemvirs themselves never claimed
the right to pass any law merely on their own authority.
"Nothing we propose to you," they said to the people,
"can pass into law without your consent. Romans, be
yourselves the authors of the laws which are to make you
happy."

^ Those who know Calvin only as a theologian much uDder-estimate the
extent of his genius. The codification of our wise edicts, in which he
played a large part, does him no less honour than his Institute, What-

will be for ever blessed.

ever revolution time may bring in our religion, so long as the spirit of
patriotism and liberty still lives among us, the memojy of this great man

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The Social Contract 37

He, therefore, who draws up the laws has, or should ^
have, no right of legislation, and the people cannot, even |
if it wishes, deprive itself of this incommunicable right, i
because, according to the fundamental compact, only the ^
general will cs^r\ hind the indiv i d uals, and there can be no ^^/
assuranc e that a particular will is "ifT co nf ormity witliJ iifi '
general wall, until it has been put to the f i-ee vote ot tne
people. THIS I have said already; but it is worth while
to repeat it.

Thus in the task of legislation we find together two
things which appear to be incompatible : an enterprise
too difficult for human powers, and, for its execution, an
authority that is no authority.

There is a further difficulty that deserves attention.
Wise men, if they try to speak their language to the
common herd instead of its own, cannot possibly make
themselves understood. There are a thousand kinds of
ideas which it is impossible to translate into popular
language. Conceptions that are too general and objects
that are too remote are equally out of its range : each
individual, having no taste for any other plan of govern-
ment than that which suits his particular interest, finds
it difficult to realise the advantages he might hope to draw
from the continual privations good laws impose. For a
young people to be able to relish sound principles of
political theory and follow the fundamental rules of state-
craft, the effect would have to become the cause ; the social
spirit, which should be created by these institutions, would
have to preside over their very foundation ; and men would
have to be before law what they should become by means
of law. The^ legislator therefore^ being unable to appeal
toeitheiLJ IpYceror reason^^ to an~

a^uffionte ^of^^dirierent jprje i i capaBIel^l ^ constraining
wi Tnout_\dolencf ap^ persuading witfaout^j conSncingl
"~^his is wharhas, in all ages, compelled the fathers of
nations to have recourse to divine intervention and credit
the gods with their own wisdom, in order that the peoples,
submitting to the laws of the State as to those of nature,
and recognising the same power in the formation of the
city as in that of man, might obey freely, and bear with
docility the yoke of the public happiness.

This sublime reason, far above die range of the common

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The Social Contract

herd, is that whose decisions the legislator puts into the
mouth of the immortals, in order to constrain by divine
authority those whom human prudence could not move.^
But it is not anybody who can make the gods speak, or
get himself believed when he proclaims himself their
interpreter. The great soul of the legislator is the only
miracle that can prove his mission. Any man may grave
tablets of stone, or buy an oracle; or feign secret inter-
course with some divinity, or train a bird to whisper in his
ear, or find other vulgar ways of imposing on the people.
He whose knowledge goes no further may perhaps gather
round him a band of fools; but he will never found an
empire, and his extravagances will quickly perish with
him. Idle tricks form a passing tie; only wisdom can
make it lasting. The Judaic law, which still subsists, and
that of the child of Ishmael, which, for ten centuries, has
ruled half the world, still proclaim the great men who laid
them down; and, while the pride of philosophy or the blind
spirit of faction sees in them no more than lucky impos-
tures, the true political theorist admires, in the institutions
they set up, the great and powerful genius which presides
over things made to endure.

We "should not, with Warburton, conclude from this
that politics and religion have among us a common object,
but that, in the first periods of nations, the one is used as
an instrument for the other.

CHAPTER Vni

THE PEOPLE

As, before putting up a large building, the architect
surveys and sounds the site to see if it will bear the weight,
the wise legislator does not begin by laying down laws
good in themselves, but by investigating the fitness of

1 " In truth," says Macchiavelli, "there has never been, in any country,
an extraordinary legislator who has not had recourse to God ; for otherwise
his laws would not have been accepted : there are, in £Eu:t, many useful
truths of which a wise man may have knowledge without their having in
themselves such clear reasons for their being so as to be able to convince
others" {Discourses m Livy, Bk. v, ch. xi). [Rousseau quotes the
Italian.]

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The Social Contract 39

the people, for which they are destined, to receive them.
Plato refused to legislate for the Arcadians and the
Cyrensans, because he knew that both peoples were rich
and could not put up with equality; and good laws and
bad men were found together in Crete, because Minos had
inflicted discipline on a people already burdened with vice.

A thousand nations have achieved earthly greatness,
that could never have endured good laws; even such as
could have endured them could have done so only for a
very brief period of their long history. Most peoples,
like most men, are docile only in youth ; as they grow old
they become incorrigible. When once customs have
become established and prejudices inveterate, it is dan-
gerous and useless to attempt their reformation; the
people, like the foolish and cowardly patients who rave
at sight of the doctor, can no longer bear that any one
should lay hands on its faults to remedy them.

There are indeed times in the history of States when,
just as some kinds of illness turn men's heads and make
them forget the past, periods of violence and revolutions
do to peoples what these crises do to individuals : horror
of the past takes the place of forgetfulness, and the State,
set on fire by civil wars, is born again, so to speak, from
its ashes, and takes on anew, fresh from the jaws of death,
the vigour of youth. Such were Sparta at the time of
Lycurgus, Rome after the Tarquins, and, in modern times,
Holland and Switzerland after the expulsion of the tyrants.

But such events are rare ; they are exceptions, the cause
of which is always to be found in the particular constitu-
tion of the State concerned. They cannot even happen
twice to the same people, for it can make itself free as
long as it remains barbarous, but not when the civic
impulse has lost its vigour. Then . disturbances may^
destroy it^ but revolutions cannot mend it : jt "^^d^ a
master, and not a liberator. Free peoples, be mingFul
oT'tEmhAJgith; "L.ioerty may be gained, but can neveF
be recovered."

Tputn IS not mtancy. There is for nations, as for men,
a period of youth, or, shall we say, maturity, before
which they should not be made subject to laws; but the
maturity of a people is not always easily recognisable,
and, if it is anticipated, the work is spoilt. One people

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40 The Social Contract

is amenable to discipline from the beginning; another,
not after ten centuries. /^Russia will never be really
civilised, because it was civilised too soon. / Peter had
a genius for imitation; but he lacked true genius, which
is creative and makes all from nothing. He did some
good things, but most of what he did was out of place.
He saw that his people was barbarous, but did not see
that it was not ripe for civilisation : h^ wanted to civilise
it when it needed only hardening. His first wish was to
make Germans or Englishmen, when he ought to have
been making Russians; and he prevented his subjects
from ever becoming what they might have been by per-
suading them that they were what they are not. In this
fashion too a French teacher turns out his pupil to be
an infant prodigy, and for the rest of his life to be nothin
whatsoever. The empire of Russia will aspire to conque
Europe, and will itself be conquered. The Tartars, its,
subjects or neighbours, will become its masters and ours,/
by a revolution which I regard as inevitable. Indeed, all]
the kings of Europe are working in concert to hasten its
coming.

CHAPTER IX
THE PEOPLE (continued)

As nature has set bounds to the stature of a well-made
man, and, outside those limits, makes nothing but giants
or dwarfs, similarly, for the constitution of a State to be
at its best, it is possible to fix limits that will make it
neither too large for good government, nor too small for
self-maintenance. In every body politic there is a
maximum strength which it cannot exceed and which it
only loses by increasing in size. Every extension of the
social tie means its relaxation; and, generally speaking,
a small State is stronger in proportion than a great one.^

A thousand arguments could be advanced in favour oT
this principle. First/ Jong distances make administration
more difficult, just as a weight becomes heavier at the end
oF & lougei 16ver. Administration therefore becomes more
and more burdensome as the distance grows greater; for,
in the first place, each city has its own, which is paid for

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The Social Contract 41

by the people : each district its own, still paid for by the
people: then comes each province, and then the great
governments, satrapies, and vice-royalties, always costing
more the higher you go, and always at the expense of the
unfortunate people. Last of aU comes the supreme
administration, which eclipses all the rest. All these over-
charges are a continual drain upon the subjects; so far
from being better governed by all these different orders,
they are worse governed than if there were only a single
authority over them. In the meantime, there scarce
remain resources enough to meet emergencies ; and, when
recourse must be had to these, the State is always on the
eve of destruction.

This is not all ; not only has the government less vigour
and promptitude for securing the observance of the laws,
' preventing nuisances, correcting abuses, and guarding
against seditious undertakings begun in distant places ; the
people has less affection for its rulers, whom it never sees,
for its country, which, to its eyes, seems like the world,
and for its fellow-citizens, most of whom are unknown to
it. The same laws cannot suit so many diverse provinces
with different customs, situated in the most various
climates, and incapable of enduring a uniform government.
Different laws lead only to trouble and confusion among
peoples which, living under the same rulers and in con-
stant communication one with another, intermingle and
intermarry, and, coming under the sway of new customs,
never know if they can call their very patrimony their own.
Talent is buried, virtue unknown and vice unpunished,
among such a multitude of men who do not know one
another, gathered together in one place at the seat of the
central administration. The leaders, overwhelmed with
business, see nothing for themselves ; the State is governed
by clerks. Finally, the measures which have to be taken
to^ maintain the general authority, which all these distant
bfficials wish to escape or to impose upon, absorb all the
energy of the public, so that there is none left for the
happiness of the people. There is hardly enough to
defend it when need arises, and thus a body which is too
big for its constitution gives way and falls crushed under
its own weight.

Again, the State must assure itself a safe foundation,

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42 The Social Contract

if it is to have stability, and to be able to resist the shocks
it cannot help experiencing^, as well as the efforts it will be
forced to make for its maintenance ; for all peoples have a
kind of centrifugal force that makes them continually act
one against another, and tend to aggrandise themselves
at their neighbours' expense, like the vortices of Descartes.
Thus the weak run the risk of being soon swallowed up;
and it is almost impossible for any one to preserve itself
except by putting itself in a state of equilibrium with all,
so that the pressure is on all sides practically equal.

It may therefore be seen that thjcre are reasons for
expansion and reasons for contraction; and it is no small
part of the statesman's skill to hit between them the
mean that is most favourable to the preservation of the
State. It may be said that the reason for expansion, being
merely external and relative, ought to be subordinate to the
reasons for contraction, which are internal and absolute.
A strong and healthy constitution is the first thing to look
for; and it is better to count on the vigour which comes
of good government than on the resources a great territory
furnishes.

It may be added that there have been known States so
constituted that the necessity of making conquests entered
into their very constitution, and that, in order to maintain
themselves, diey were forced to expand ceaselessly. It
may be that they congratulated themselves greatly on this
fortunate necessity, which none the less indicated to them,
along with the limits of their greatness, the inevitable
moment of their fall.

CHAPTER X

THE PEOPLE (continued)

A BODY politic may be measured in two ways — either
by the extent of its territory, or by the number of its
people; and there is, between these two measurements, a
right relation which makes the State really great. The
men make the State, and the territory sustains the men;
the right relation therefore is that the land should suffice
for the maintenance of the inhabitants, and that there

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The Social Contract 43

should be as many inhabitants as the land can maintain.
In this proportion lies the maximum strength of a given
number of people; for, if there is too much land, it is
troublesome to guard and inadequately cultivated, pro^
duces more than is needed, and soon gives rise to wars of
defence; if there is not enough, the State depends on its
neighbours for what it needs over and above, and this
soon gives rise to wars of offence. Every people, to which
its situation gives no choice save that between commerce
and war, is weak in itself : it depends on its neighbours,
and on circumstances; its existence can never be more
than short and uncertain. It either conquers others, and
changes its situation, or it is conquered and becomes
nothing. Only insignificance or greatness can keep it
free.

No fixed relation can be stated between the extent ofv^
territory and the population that are adequate one to the
other, both because of the differences in the quality of
land, in its fertility, in the nature of its products, and in
the influence of climate, and because of the different
tempers of those who inhabit it; for some in a fertile
country consume little, and others on an ungrateful soil
much. The greater or less fecundity of women, the con-
ditions that are more or less favourable in each country
to the growth of population, and the influence the legislator
can hope to exercise by his institutions, must also be taken
into account. The legislator therefore should not go by
what he sfees, but by what he foresees ; he should stop not
so much at the state in which he actually finds the popu-
lation, as at that to which it ought naturally to attain.
Lastly, there are countless cases in which the particular
local circumstances demand or allow the acquisition of a
greater territory than seems necessary. Thus, expansion
will be great in a mountainous country, where the natural
products, i, e, woods and pastures, need less labour, where
we know from experience that women are more fertile than
in the plains, and where a great expanse of slope affords
only a small level tract that can be counted on for vegeta-
tion. On the other hand, contraction is possible on the
coast, even in lands of rocks and nearly barren sands,
because there fishing makes up to a great extent for the
lack of land-produce, because the inhabitants have to

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44 The Social Contract

congregate together more in order to repel pirates, and
fur^er because it is easier to unburden die country of its
superfluous inhabitants by means of colonies.

To these conditions of law-giving must be added one
other which, though it cannot take the place of the rest,
renders them all useless when it is absent. This is the
enjoyment of peace and plenty; for the moment at which
a State sets its house in order is, like the moment when a
battalion is forming up, that when its body is least capable
of offering resistance and easiest to destroy. A better
resistance could be made at a time of absolute disorganisa-
tion than at a moment of fermentation, when each is
occupied with his own position and not with the danger.
If war, famine, or sedition arises at this time of crisis, the
State will inevitably be overthrown.

Not that many governments have not been set up
during such storms; but in such cases these governments
are themselves the State's destroyers. Usurpers always
bring about or select troublous times to get passed, under
cover of the public terror, destructive laws, which the
people would never adopt in cold blood. The moment
chosen is one of the surest means of distinguishing the
work of the legislator from that of the tyrant.

What people, then, is a fit subject for legislation ? One
which, already bound by some unity of origin, interest,
or convention, has never yet felt the real yoke of law; one
that has neither customs nor superstitions deeply ingrained,
one which stands in no fear of being overwhelmed by
sudden invasion; one which, without entering into its
neighbours' quarrels, can resist each of them single-
handed, or get the help of one to repel another; one in
which every member may be known by every other, and
there is no need to lay on any man burdens too heavy for
a man to bear; one which can do without other peoples,
and without which all others can do ; ^ one which is

^ If there were two neighbouring peoples, one of which could not do
without the other, it would be very hard on the former, and very dangerous
for the latter. Every wise nation, in such a case, would make haste to free
the other from dependence. The Republic of Thlascala, enclosed by the
Mexican Empire, preferred doing without salt to buying from the Mexicans,
or even getting it from them as a gift The Thlascalans were wise enough
to see the snare hidden under such liberality. They kept their freedom,
and that little State, shut up in that great Empire, was finally the instrument
of its ruin.

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The Social Contract 45

neither rich nor poor, but self-sufficient; and, lastly, one
which unites the consistency of an andeni people with the
docility of a new one. Legislation is made difficult less
by what it is necessary to build up than by what has to be
destroyed; and what makes success so rare is the
impossibility of finding natural simplicity together with
social requirements. All these conditions are indeed
rarely found united, and therefore few States have good
constitutions.

There is still in Europe one country capable of being
given laws — Corsica. The valour and persistency with
which that brave people has regained and defended its
liberty well deserves that some wise man should teach
it how to preserve what it has won. I have a feeling that
some day that little island will astonish Europe.

CHAPTER XI

THE VARIOUS SYSTEMS OF LEGISLATION

If we ask in what precisely consists the greatest good
of all, which should be the end of every system of legisla- j
tion, we shall find it reduce itself to two main objects, '
liberty and equality — ^liberty, because all particular de-
pendence means so much force taken from the body of
the State, and equality, because liberty cannot exist
without it.

I have already defined civil liberty; by equality, we
should understand, not that the degrees of power and
riches are to be absolutely identical for everybody; b^t
that power shall never be great enough for violence, and
shall always be exercised by virtue of rank and law; and
that, in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy
enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced
to sell himself : ^ which implies, on the part of the great,

^ If the object is to giye the State consistency, bring the two extremes as
near to each other as possible ; allow neither ndi men nor beggars. These
two estates, which are naturally inseparable, are equally fatal to the com-
mon good ; from the one come the friends of tyranny, and from the other
tyrants. It is always between them that public liberty is put up to
auction ; the one buys, and the other sells.

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46 The Social Contract

moderation in goods and position, and, on the side of the
common sort, moderation in avarice and covetousness.

Such equality, we are told, is an unpractical ideal that
cannot actually exist. But if its abuse is inevitable, does
it follow that we should not at least make regulations
concerning it? It is precisely because the force of cir-
cumstances tends continually to destroy equality that the
force of legislation should always tend to its maintenance.

But these general objects of every good legislative
system need modifying in every country in accordance
with the local situation and the temper of the inhabitants ;
and these circumstances should determine, in each case,
the particular system of institutions which is best, not
perhaps in itself, but for the State for which it is destined.
If, for instance, the soil is barren and unproductive, or the
lan\i too crowded for its inhabitants, the people should
turn to industry and the crafts, and exchange what they
produce for the commodities they lack. If, on the other
hand, a people dwells in rich plams and fertile slopes, or,
in a good land, lacks inhabitants, it should give all its
attention to agriculture, which causes men to multiply,
and should drive out the crafts, which would only result
in depopulation, by grouping in a few localities the few
inhabitants there are.^ If a nation dwells on an extensive
and convenient coast-line, let it cover the sea with ships
and foster commerce and navigation. It will have a life
that will be short and glorious. If, on its coasts, the sea
washes nothing but almost inaccessible rocks, let it remain
barbarous and ichthyophagous : it will have a quieter,
perhaps a better, and certainly a happier life. In a word,
besides the principles that are common to all, every nation
has in itself something that gives them a particular appli-
cation, and makes its legislation peculiarly its own. Thus,
among the Jews long ago and more recently among the
Arabs, the chief object was religion, among the Athenians
letters, at Carthage and Tyre commerce, at Rhodes
shipping, at Sparta war, at Rofaie virtue. The author of

1 * * Any branch of foreign commerce, ** says M . d' Azgenson, ' * creates on the
whole only apparent advantage for the kingdom in general ; it may enrich
some individuals, or even some towns; but the nation as a whole gains
nothing by it, and the people is no better o£"

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The Social Contract 47

The Spirit of the Laws has shown with many examples by
what art the legislator directs the constitution towards
each of these objects.

What makes the constitution of a State really solid and y
lasting JT^thn dnr nhfirnranrf^ ^f what is proper, so that \
jhit H'atnr'il rrhtinng nrf nlwnyg in nf^re^rn^nt with the laws
"^n nrrry point, Tind law only serves, so to speak, to assure,
accompany and rectify them. But if the legislator
mistakes his object and adopts a principle other than
circumstances naturally direct; if his principle makes for
servitude while they make for liberty, or if it makes for
riches, while they make for populousness, or if it makes
for peace, while they make for conquest — ^the laws will
insensibly lose their influence, the constitution will alter,
and the State will have no rest from trouble till it is either
destroyed or changed, and nature has resumed her
invincible sway.

CHAPTER XII

THE DIVISION OF THE LAWS

If the whole is to be set in order, and the commonwealth
put into the best possible shape, there are various relations
to be considered. First, there is the action of the complete
body upon itself, the relation of the whole to the whole,
of the Sovereign to the State; and this relation, as we
shall see, is made up of the relations of the intermediate
terms.

The laws which regulate this relation bear^fehe name
of political laws, and are also called fundamental laws, not
without reason if they are wise. For, if there i§. in each
State, only one good system, the people that is in pos-
session of it should hold fast to this ; but if the established
order is bad, why should laws that prevent men frofti being
good be regarded as fundamental? Besides, in anjTcase,
a people is always in a position to change its laws, how-
ever good ; for, if it choose to do itself harm, who can have
a right to stop it?

The second relation is that of the members one to
another, or to the body as a whole ; and this relation should

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The Social Contract

be in the first respect as unimportant, and in the second
as important, as possible. Each citizen would then be
perfectly independent of all the rest, and at the same time
very dependent on the city;. which is brought about always
by the same means, as the strength of the State can alone
secure the liberty of its members. From this second
relation arise civil laws.

We may consider also a third kind of relation between
the individual and the law, a relation of disobedience to its
penalty. This gives rise to the setting up of criminal
laws, which, at bottom, are less a particular class of law
than the sanction behind all the rest.

Along with these three kinds of law goes a fourth, most
important of all, which is not graven on tablets of marble
or brass, but on the hearts of ^e citizens. This forms the
real constitution of the State, takes on every day new
powers, when other laws decay or die out, restores them
or takes their place, keeps a people in the ways in which it
was meant to go, and insensibly replaces authority by the
force of habit. I am speaking of morality, of custom,
above all of public opinion; a power unknown to political
thinkers, on which none the less success in everything
else depends. With this the great' legislator concerns
himself in secret, though he seems to confine himself to
particular regulations; for these are only the arc of the
arch, while manners and morals, slower to arise, form in
the end its immovable keystone.

Among the different classes of laws, the political, which
determine the form of the government, are alone relevant
to my subject.

BOOK III

Before speaking of the different forms of government,
let us try to fix the exact sense of the word, which has
not yet been very clearly explained.

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The Social Contract 49

CHAPTER I

GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL

I WARN the reader that this chapter requires careful
reading) and that I am unable to make myself clear to
those who refuse to be attentive.

Every free action is produced by the concurrence of two^
causes ; one moral, ». e, the will which determines the act ; j ^
the other physical, ». e, the power which executes it. J
When I walk towards an object, it is necessary first that
I should will to go there, and, in the second place, that
my feet should carry me. If a paralytic wills to run and
an active man wills not to, they Will both stay where they
are. The body politic has the same motive powers; hereN ,
too force and will are distinguished, will under the name ) '
of legislative power and force under that of executive ^
power. Without their concurrence, nothing is, or should
be, done. ,

We have seen that the legislative power belongs to the ^
people, and can belong to it alone. It may, on the other \
hand, readily be seen, from the principles laid down above,
that the executive power cannot belong to the generality
as legislature or Sovereign, because it consists wholly of «
particular acts which fall outside the competency of the ;
law, and consequently of the Sovereign, whose acts must
always be laws.

The public force therefore needs an agent of its own
to bind it together and set it to work under the direction
of the general will, to serve as a means of communication
between the State and the Sovereign, and to do for the
collective person more or less what the union of soul and
body does for man. Here we have what is, in the. State,
the basis of government, often wrongly confused with the
Sovereign, whose minister it is. . ^

^ What then is government? An intermediate body set^
up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their
mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of
the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and
political.

The members of this body are called magistrates or
kingSy that is to say governors^ and the whole body bears

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50 The Social Contract

the name prince.^ Thus those who hold that the act, by
which a people puts itself under a prince, is not a con-
tract, are certainly right. It is simply and solely a com-
mission, an employment, in which the rulers, mere officials
of the Sovereign, exercise in their own name the power
of which it makes them depositaries. This power it can
limit, modify or recover at pleasure; for the alienation of
such a right is incompatible with the nature of the social
body, and contrary to the end of association.

I call then government^ or supreme administration, the
legitimate exercise of the executive power, and prince or
magistrate the man or the body entrusted with that
administration.

In government reside the intermediate forces whose
relations make up that of the whole to the whole, or of
the Sovereign to the State. This last relation may be
represented as that between the extreme terms of a con-
tinuous proportion, which has government as its mean
proportional. The government gets from the Sovereign
the orders it gives the people, and, for the State to be
properly balanced, there must, when everything is reckoned
in, be equality between the product or power of the govern-
ment taken in itself, and the product or power of the
; citizens, who are on the one hand sovereign and on the
pther subject.

Furthermore, none of these three terms can be altered
without the equality being instantly destroyed. If the
Sovereign desires to govern, or the magistrate to give
laws, or if the subjects refuse to obey, disorder takes the
place of regularity, force and will no longer act together,
and the State is dissolved and falls into despotism or
anarchy. Lastly, as there is only one mean proportional
between each relation, there is also only one good govern-
ment possible for a State. But, as countless events may
change the relations of a people, not only may different
governments be good for different peoples, but also for
the same people at different times.

In attempting to give some idea of the various relations
that may hold between these two extreme terms, I shall

^ Thus at Venice the College, even in the absence of the Doge, is called
"Most Serene Prince."

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The Social Contract 51

take as an example the number of a people, which is the
most easily expressible.

Suppose the State is composed of ten thousand citizens.
The Sovereign can only be considered collectively and as
a body ; but each member, as being a subject, is regarded
as an individual : thus the Sovereign is to the subject as
ten thousand to one, ». e, each member of the State has
as his share only a ten-thousandth part of the sovereign
authority, although he is wholly under its control. If the
people numbers a hundred thousand, the condition of the
subject undergoes no change, and each equally is under
the whole authority of the laws, while his vote, being
reduced to one hundred thousandth part, has ten times
less influence in drawing them up. The subject therefore
remaining always a unit, the relation between him and the
Sovereign increases with the number of the citizens. From
this it follows that, the larger the State, the less the liberty^

When I say the relation increases, I mean that it grows \
more unequal. Thus the greater it is in the geometrical ■,
sense, the less relation there is in the ordinary sense of ^'
the word. In the former sense, the relation, considered
according to quantity, is expressed by the quotient; in /
the latter, considered according to identity, it is reckoned-'
by similarity.

Now, the less relation the particular wills have to the
general will, that is, morals and manners to laws, the
more should the repressive force be increased. The j
government, then, to be good, should be proportionately '
stronger as the people is more numerous.

On the other hand, as the growth of the State gives
the depositaries of the public authority more temptations
and chances of abusing their power, the greater the force
with which the government ought to be endowed for
keeping the people in hand, the greater too should be
the force at the disposal of the Sovereign for keeping the
government in hand. I am speaking, not of absolute
force, but of the relative force of the different parts of the
State.

It follows from this double relation that the continuous
proportion between the Sovereign, the prince and the
people, is by no means an arbitrary idea, but a necessary
consequence of the nature of the body politic. It follows

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52 The Social Contract

further that, one of the extreme terms, viz. the people, as
subject, being fixed and represented by unity, whenever
the duplicate ratio increases or diminishes, the simple ratio
does the same, and is changed accordingly. From this we
see that there is not a single unique and absolute form of
government, but as many governments differing in nature
as there are States differing in size.

If, ridiculing this system, any one were to say that,
in order to find the mean proportional and give form to
the body of the government, it is only necessary, accord-
ing to me, to find the square root of the number of the
people, I should answer that I am here taking this number
only as an instance; that the relations of which I am
speaking are not measured by the number of men alone,
but generally by the amount of action, which is a com-
bination of a multitude of causes; and that, further, if,
to save words, I borrow for a moment the terms of
geometry, I am none the less well aware that moral
quantities do not allow of geometrical accuracy.

The government is on a small scale what the body
politic which includes it is on a great one. It is a giora li
person endowed with certain faculties, active like the^
Sovereign and passive like the State, and capable of being
resolved into other similar relations. This accordingly
gives rise to a new proportion, within which there is yet
another, according to the arrangement of the magistracies,
till an indivisible middle term is reached, t. e. a single
ruler or supreme magistrate, who may be represented,
in the midst of this progression, as the unity between the
fractional and the ordinal series.

Without encumbering ourselves with this multiplication
of terms, let us rest content with regarding government
as a new body within the State, distinct from the people
and the Sovereign, and intermediate between them.

There is between these two bodies this essential differ-
ence, that the State exists by itself, and the government
only through the Sovereign. Thus the dominant will of
the prince is, or should be, nothing but the general will
or the law ; his force is only the public force concentrated
in his hands, and, as soon as he tries to base any absolute
and independent act on his own authority, the tie that
binds the whole together begins to be loosened. If finally

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The Social Contract 53

the prince should come to have a particular will more
active than the will of the Sovereign, and should employ
the public force in his hands in obedience to this particular
will, there would be, so to speak, two Sovereigns, one
rightful and the other actual, the social union would evapor-
ate instantly, and the body politic would be dissolved.

However, in order that the government may have a
true existence and a real life distinguishing it from th£
body of the State, and in order that all its members may
be able to act in concert and fulfil the end for which it
was set up, it must have a particular personality, a sensi-
bility common to its members, and a force and will of its
own making for its preservation. This particular exist-
ence implies assemblies, councils, power of deliberation
and decision, rights, titles, and privileges belonging ex-
clusively to the prince and making the office of magistrate
more honourable in proportion as it is more troublesome.
Tlie difficulties lie in the manner of so ordering this sub-
ordinate whole within the whole, that it in no way alters
the general constitution by affirmation of its own, and
always distinguishes the particular force it possesses,
which is destined to aid in its preservation, from the public
force, which is destined to the preservation of the State;
and, in a word, is always ready to sacrifice the govern-
ment to the people, and never to sacrifice the people to the
government.

Furthermore, although the artificial body of the govern-
ment is the work of another artificial body, and has, we
may say, only a borrowed and subordinate life, this does
not prevent it from being able to act with more or less
vigour or promptitude, or from being, so to speak, in
more or less robust health. Finally, without departing
directly from the end for which it was instituted, it may
deviate more or less from it, according to the manner of
its constitution.

From all these differences arise the various relations
which the government ought to bear to the body of the
State, according to the accidental and particular relations
by which the State itself is modified, for often the govern-
ment that is best in itself will become the most pernicious,
if the relations in which it stands have altered according
to the defects of the body politic to which it belongs.

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54 The Social Contract

CHAPTER II

THE CONSTITUENT PRINCIPLE IN THE VARIOUS FORMS OF
GOVERNMENT

To set forth the general cause of the above differences,
we must here distinguish between government and its
principle, as we did before between the State and the
Sovereign.

The body of the magistrate may be composed of a
greater or a less number of members. We said that the
relation of the Sovereign to the subjects was greater in
proportion as the people was more numerous, and, by a
clear analogy, we may say the same of the relation of the
government to the magistrates.

But the total force of the government, being always
that of the State, is invariable; so that, the more of this
force it expends on its own members, the less it has left
to employ on the whole people.

The more numerous the magistrates, therefore, the
weaker the government. This principle being funda-
mental, we must do our best to make it clear.

In the person of the magistrate we can distinguish three
essentially different wills : first, the private will of the
individual, tending only to his personal advantage;
secondly, the common will of the magistrates, which is
relative solely to the advantage of the prince, and may
be called corporate will, being general in relation to the
government, and particular in relation to the State, of
which the government forms part ; and, in the third place,
the will of the people or the sovereign will, which is
general both in relation to the State regarded as the whole,
and to the government regarded as a part of the whole.

In a perfect act of legislation, the individual or par-
ticular will should be at zero; the corporate will belong-
ing to the government should occupy a very subordinate
position; and, consequently, the general or sovereign will
should always predominate and should be the sole guide
of all the rest.

According to the natural order, on the other hand, these
different wills become more active in proportion as they
are concentrated. Thus, the general will is always the

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The Social Contract 55

. weakest, the corporate will second, and the individual will
strongest of all : so that, in the government, each member
is first of all himself, then a magistrate, and then a citizen
— in an order exactly the reverse of what the social system
requires.

This granted, if the whole gbvernment is in the hands
of one man, the particular and the corporate will are wholly
united, and consequently the latter is at its highest possible
degree of intensity. But, as the use to which the force Is
put depends on the degree reached by the will, and as the
absolute force of the government is invariable, it follows
that the most active government is that of one man.

Suppose, on the other hand, we unite the government
with the legislative authority, and make the Sovereign
prince also, and all the citizens so many magistrates:
then the corporate will, being confounded with the general
will, can possess no greater activity than that will, and
must leave the particular will as strong as it can possibly
be. Thus, the government, having always the same
absolute force, will be at the lowest point of its relative
force or activity.

These relations are incontestable, and there are other
considerations which still further confirm them. We can
see, for instance, that each magistrate is more active in
the body to which he belongs than each citizen in that to
which he belongs, and that consequently the particular
will has much more influence on the acts of the govern-
ment than on those of the Sovereign ; for each magistrate
is almost always charged with some governmental func-
tion, while each citizen, taken singly, exercises no function
of Sovereignty. Furthermore, the bigger the State grows,
the more its real force increases, though not in direct pro-
portion to its growth ; but, the State remaining the same,
the number of magistrates may increase to any extent,
without the government gaining any greater real force;
for its force is that of the State, the dimension of which
remains equal. Thus the relative force or activity of the
government decreases, while its absolute or real force
cannot increase.

Moreover, it is a certainty that promptitude in execution
diminishes as more people are put in charge of it : where
prudence is made too much of, not enough is made of

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fortune; opportunity is let slip, and deliberation results in

the loss of its object.

/ I have just proved that the government grows remiss

in proportion as the number of Sie magistrates increases ;

and I previously proved that, the more numerous the

people, the greater should be the repressive force. ' From

this it follows that the relation of the magistrates to the

government should vary inversely to the relation of the

subjects to the Sovereign; that is to say, the larger

I the State, the more should the government be tightened,

Vso that the number of the rulers diminish in proportion to

the increase of that of the people.

It should be added that I am here speaking of the
relative strength of the government, and not of its recti-
tude : for, on the other hand, the more numerous the
magistracy, the nearer the corporate will comes to the
general will; while, under a single magistrate, the cor-
porate will is, as I said, merely a particular will. Thus,
what may be gained on one side is lost on the other, and
the art of the legislator is to know how to fix the point at
which the force and the will of the government, which are
always in inverse proportion, meet in the relation that is
most to the advantage of the State.

CHAPTER III

THE DIVISION OF GOVERNMENTS

We saw in the last chapter what causes the various
kinds or forms of government to be distinguished accord-
ing to the number of the members composing them : it
remains in this to discover how the division is made.

In the first place, the Sovereign may commit the charge
of the government to the whole people or to the majority
of the people, so that more citizens arc magistrates than
are mere private individuals. This form of government
is called democracy.

Or it may restrict the government to a small number;
so that there are more private citizens than magistrates;
and this is named aristocracy.

Lastly, it may concentrate the whole government in the

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hands of a single magistrate from whom all others hold
their power. This third form is the most usual, and is
called monarchyy or royal government.

It should be remarked that all these forms, or at least
the first two, admit of degree, and even of very wide
differences; for democracy may include the whole people,
or may be restricted to half. Aristocracy, in its turn, may
be restricted indefinitely from half the people down to the
smallest possible number. Even royalty is susceptible of
a measure of distribution. Sparta always had two kings,
as its constitution provided; and the Roman Empire saw
as many as eight emperors at once, without it being
possible to say that the Empire was split up. Thus there
is a point at which each form of government passes into
the next, and it becomes clear that, under three compre-
hensive denominations, government is really susceptible of
as many diverse forms as the State has citizens.

There are even more : for, as the government may also,
in certain aspects, be subdivided into other parts, one
administered in one fashion and one in another, the com-
bination of the three forms may result in a multitude of
mixed forms, each of which admits of multiplication by
all the simple forms.

There has been^ at all times much dispute concerning
the best form of government, without consideration of the
fact that each is in some cases the best, and in others the
worst.

If, in the different States, the number of supreme magis-
trates should be in inverse ratio to the number of citizens,
it follows that, generally, democratic government suits
small States, aristocratic government those of middle size,
and monarchy great ones. This rule is immediately
deducible from the principle laid down. But it is impos-
sible to count the innumerable circumstances which may
furnish exceptions.

CHAPTER IV

DEMOCRACY

He who makes the law knows better than any one else
how it should be executed and interpreted. It seems then

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58 The Social Contract

impossible \o have a better constitution than that in which
the executive and legislative powers are united; but this
very fact renders the government in certain respects in-
adequate, because things which should be distinguished
are confounded, and the prince and the Sovereign, being
the same person, form, so to speak, no more than a
government without government.

It is not good for him who makes the laws to execute
them, or for the body of the people to turn its attention
away from a general standpoint and devote it to particular
objects. Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of
private interests in public affairs, and the abuse of the
laws by the government is a less evil than the corruption
of the legislator, which is the inevitable sequel to a par-
ticular standpoint. In such a case, the State being altered
in substance, all reformation becomes impossible. A
people that would never misuse governmental powers
would never misuse independence; a people that would
always govern well would not need to be governed.

If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has
been a real democracy, and there never will be. It is
against the natural order for the many to govern and the
few to be governed. It is unimaginable that the people
should remain continually assembled to devote their time
to public affairs, and it is clear that they cannot set up
commissions for that purpose without the form of adminis-
tration betng changed.

In fact, I can confidently lay down as a principle that,
when the functions of government are shared by several
tribunals, the less numerous sooner or later acquire the
greatest authority, if only because they are in a position
to expedite affairs, and power thus naturally comes into
their hands.

Besides, how many conditions that are difficult to unite
does such a government presuppose ! First, a very small
State, where the people can readily be got together and
where each citizen can with ease know all the rest;
secondly, great simplicity of manners, to prevent business
from multiplying and raising thorny problems; next, a
large measure of equality in rank and fortune, without
which equality of rights and authority cannot long subsist ;
lastly, little or no luxury — ^for luxury either comes of

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The Social Contract 59

riches or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once nfe|i
and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetous-\
ness; it sells the country to softness and vanity, and takes;
away from the State all its citizens, to make them slaves)
one to another, and one and all to public opinion. -J

This is why a famous writer has made virtue the funda-\
mental principle of Republics ; for all these conditions could \
not exist without virtue. But, for want of the necessary '
distinctions, that great thinker was often inexact,^ and
sometimes obscure, and did not see that, the sovereign
authority being everywhere the same, the same principle
should be found in every well-constituted State, in a
greater or less degree, it is true, according to the form of
the government.

It may be added that there is no government so subject
to civil wars and intestine agitations as democratic or
popular government, because there is none which has so
strong and continual a tendency to change to another
form, or which demands more vigilance and courage for j
its maintenance as it is. Under such a constitution above
all, the citizen should arm himself with strength and con-
stancy, and say, every day of his life, what a virtuous
Count Palatine ^ said in the Diet of Poland : Malo peri-
culosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.

Were there a people of gods, their government would y^
be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.

CHAPTER V

ARISTOCRACY

We have here two quite distinct moral persons, the
government and the Sovereign, and in consequence two
general wills, one general in relation to all the citizens,
the other only for the members of the administration.
Thus, although the government may regulate its internal
policy as it pleases, it can never speak to the people save

^ The Palatine of Posen, father of the King of Poland, Duke of Lor-
raine. [I prefer liberty wi^ danger to peace with slavery.]

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6o The Social Contract

in the name of the Sovereign, that is, of the people itself,
a fact which must not be forgotten.

The first societies governed themselves aristocratically.
The heads of families took counsel together on public
affairs. The young bowed without question to the
authority of experience. Hence such names as priests y
eldersy senate, and gerontes. The savages of North
America govern themselves in this way even now, and
their government is admirable.

But, in proportion as artificial inequality produced by
institutions became predominant over natural inequality,
riches or power ^ were put before age, and aristocracy
became elective. Finally, the transmission of the father's
power along with his goods to his children, by creating
patrician families, made government hereditary, and there
came to be senators of twenty.

/ There are then three sorts of aristocracy — natural,
elective and hereditary. The first is only for simple
peoples; the third is the worst of all governments; the
second is the best, and is aristocracy properly so called.

Besides the advantage that lies in the distinction between
the two powers, it presents that of its members being
chosen; for, in popular government, all the citizens are
bom magistrates ; but here magistracy is confined to a
few, who become such only by election.^ By this means
uprightness, understanding, experience and all other
claims to pre-eminence and public esteem become so many
further guarantees of wise government.

Moreover, assemblies are more easily held, affairs better
discussed and carried out with more order and diligence,
and the credit of the State is better sustained abroad by
venerable senators than by a multitude that is unknown
or despised.
* In a word, it is the best and most natural arrangement

^ It is clear that the word optimates meant, among the ancients, not the
best, but the most powerfiil.

* It is of great importance that the form of the election of magistrates
should be regulated by law ; for if it is left at the discretion of the prince,
k is impossible to avoid falling into hereditary aristocracy, as the Republics
of Venice and Berne actually did. The first of these has therefore long
been a State dissolved ; the second, however, is maintained by the extreme
wisdom of the senate, and forms an honourable and highly dangerous
exception.

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The Social Contract 6i

that the wisest should govern the many^ w hen it is assured
that they will govern tor its profit, and not for their own. /
There is no need to multiply instruments, or get twenty ^
t housand men to do what a hund re d picked men can do
even better , but it must not b^ fOi'^otten mat corporate
mterest here begins to direct the public power less under
the regulation of the general will, and that a further
inevitable propensity takes away from the laws part of
the executive power.

If we are to speak of what is individually desirable,
neither should the State be so small, nor a people so
simple and upright, that the execution of the laws follows
immediately from the public will, as it does in a good
democracy. Nor should the nation be so great that the
rulers have to scatter in order to govern it and are able
to play the Sovereign each in his own department, and,
beginning by making themselves independent, end by
becoming masters.

But if aristocracy does not demand all the virtues needed
by popular government, it demands others which are
peculiar to itself; for instance, moderation on the side of
the rich and contentment on that of the poor ; for it seems
that thorough-going equality would be out of place, as it
was not found even at Sparta.

Furthermore, if this form of government carries with it
a certain inequality of fortune, this is justifiable in order
that as a rule the administration of public affairs may be
entrusted to those who are most able to give them their
whole time, but not, as Aristotle maintains, in order that
the rich may always be put first. On the contrary, it is
of importance that an opposite choice should occasionally
teach the people that the deserts of men offer claims to
pre-eminence more important than those of riches.

CHAPTER VI

MONARCHY

So far, we have considered the prince as a moral and
collective person, unified by the force of the laws, and the
depositary in the State of the executive power. We have

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62 The Social Contract

now to consider this power when it is^thered together
into the hands of a natural person, a re^nian, who alone
has the right to dispose of it in accordance with the laws.
Such a person is called a monarch or king.

In contrast with other forms of administration, in which
a collective being stands for an individual, in this form
an individual stands for a colle ctive being; s o that the
moral unity tnat constitutei^ Llie pi'mce is at the same time
a physical unity, and all the qualities, which in the other
case are only with difficulty brought together by the law,
are found naturally united.

Thus the will of the people, the will of the prince, the
public force of the State, and the particular force of the
government, all answer to a single motive power; all
the springs of the machine are in the same hands, the
whole moves towards the same end; there are no conflict-
ing movements to cancel one another, and no kind of
constitution can be imagined in which a less amount of
effort produces a more considerable amount of action.
Archimedes, seated quietly on the bank and easily drawing
a great vessel afloat, stands to my mind for a skilful
monarch, governing vast states from his study, and
moving everything while he seems himself unmoved.

But if no government is more vigorous than this, there
is also none in which the particular will holds more sway
and rules the rest more easily. Everythin g mnvps tniy^rHg
the same end indeed, but t h^ pnH jg hy nn rpy^^p*^ \\\^t nf
the public haoomess. and even the force of the administrar
tion c onstantly shows itself prejudicial to the State."^

Kings desire to De absolute, and men are always crying^Si^
out to them from afar that the best means of being so is
to get themselves loved by their people. This precept is
all very well, and even in some respects very true. Unfor-
tunately, it will always be derFded at court. The power •
which comes of a people's love is no doubt the greatest;
but it is precarious and conditional, and princes will never
rest content with it. T^*" bfiSt kinpf ^'^'''^'^ ^i^ ^r in n
pnf;j | tinn to be wicked, if the y please, without forfeiting
their mastery ; p olitical sermonisers may tell them to their
hearts' content that, the people's strength being their
own, their first interest is that the people should be pros-
perous, numerous and formidable ; they are well aware that

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The Social Contract 63

this is untrue. T^^ir firct porsnngl int#>ri*cf Jc that th#>

people shouid be weak, wretched| and M nf ^^*^ ^^ r^c;ci-
t hgm. A admit that, provided the subjects remained always
m submission, the prince's interest would indeed be that
it should be powerful, in order that its power, being his
own, might make him formidable to his neighbours; but,
this interest being merely secondary and subordinate, and
strength being incompatible with submission, princes
naturally give the preference always to the principle that
is more to their immediate advantage. This is what
Samuel put strongly before the Hebrews, and what
Macchiavelli has clearly shown. He professed to teach
kings ; but it was the people he really taught. His Prince
is the book of Republicans.^

We found, on general grounds, that mpp^rrhy is suit-
able only for great States, a nd this is confirmed when we
examine it in itself. The more numerous the public
administr ation^ the smaller becomes the relation betweejn
the nrinnft an<;| the subjects, a nd the nearer it comes to
equality, so that in democracy the ratio is unity, or abso-
intp fiqiiality. Again, as the government is restricted in
numbers the ratio increases and reaches its maximum
when the government is in the hands of a single person.
There is thpn tnn great a distance between p^nrf ^"^

people^ and the State lac ing p hnnri of nn^r^f^, Tn form

sucn a bond" there must be .intermediate orders, and
princes, personages and nobility to compose them. But
no such things suit a small State, to which all class
differences mean ruin.

^If, however, it is hard for a great State to be well
governed, it is much harder for it to be so by a single
man; and every one knows what happens when kings
\substitute others for themselves.
S^An essential and inevitable defect, which will always

^ Macchiavelli was a proper man and a good citizen ; but, being attached
to the court of the Medici, he could not help veih'ng his love of liberty in^
the midst of his country's oppression. The choice of his detestable hero,
Caesar Borgia, clearly enough shows his hidden aim ; and the contradiction '
between the teaching of the Prince and that of the Discourses an Livy and
the History of Florence shows that this profound political thinker has so far
been studied only by superficial or corrupt readers. The Court of Rome
sterAly prohibited his book. I can well believe it ; for it is that Court it
most clearly portrays.

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The Social Contract

rank monarchical below republican government, is that in
a republic the public voice hardly ever raises to the highest
positions men who are not enlightened and capable, and
such as to fill them with honour ; "^^«^^JrTi,,innina.rr^^^*'^ ^hr^t^
who rise to the top are most often merely petty blunderb uss
petty swindlers, and petty intriguers, w hose petty talents
cause them to get into the highest positions at Court, but,
as soon as they have got there, serve only to make their
ineptitude clear to the public. The people is far less often
mistaken in its choice than the prince; and a man of real
worth among the king's ministers is almost as rare as a
fool at the head of a republican government. Thus, when,
by some fortunate chance, one of these born governors
takes the helm of State in some monarchy that has been
nearly overwhelmed by swarms of * gentlemanly * adminis-
trators, there is nothing but amazement at the resources
he discovers, and his coming marks an era in his country's
history.

For a monarchical State to have a chance of being well
governed, its population and extent must be proportionate

to the abilities of its governor. \f is eas jpr tn rnngnpr

than to rule. With a long enough lever, the world could
be moved with a single finger; to sustain it needs the
shoulders of H<*rnulefl — PP^^vcf small a State mav be .
the prince is hardfy ever b if y enough ^^'' '^ When, on the
other hand, it happens that the State is too small for its
ruler, in these rare cases too it is ill governed, because
thfi-rulfiEt- constantly pursuing his great designs, forg ets
the interests of the people^ and malf^g it nn Ipqc x»rr^trh^H
by misusing the talents he ^ has, t han a ruler of less
capacity would make it for want of those he had not.
A kingdom should, so to speak, expand or contract with
each reign, according to the prince's capabilities; but,
the abilities of a senate being more constant in quantity,
the State can then have permanent frontiers without the
administration suffering.

The disadvantage that is most felt in monarchical

government is th^ want tyf fh#> ^^pfimi^ng gnro#>cgi^ji

which, in both the other forms, provides an unbroken
bond of union. When one king dies, another is needed;
elections leave dangerous intervals and are full of storms ;
and unless the citizens are disinterested and upright to a

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The Social Contract 65

degree which very seldom goes with this kind of govern-
ment, jj]^t ,i^jg-iift and corruption abound. . He to whom tlieT
State has sold itself can hardly help selling it in his turn\
and repaying himself, at the expense of the weak, the
money the powerful have wrung from him. Under such
an administration, venality sooner or later spreads
through every part, and peace so enjoyed under a king/
is worse than the disorders of an interregnum. J^

What has been done to prevent these evils? Crowns
have been made hereditary in certain families, and an
order of succession has been set up, to prevent disputes
from arising on the death of kings. That is to say, the
disadvantages of regency have been put in place of those
of election, apparent tranquillity has been preferred to
wise administration , and men have chosen rather to T'^IT" y^
having children, Tnonstrosities, or imbeciles as rulers to '^
having disputes over tne cnoice oi gooa Rings, it nas
not been taken into account tnat, in so exposing ourselves
to the risks this possibility entails, we are setting almost
all the chances against us. There was sound sense in
what the younger Dionysius said to his father, who
reproached him for doing some shameful deed by asking,
"Did I set you the example?*' "No," answered his son,
"but your father was not king."

Everything conspires to take away from a man who is
set in authori ty over others the sense of justice and reason.
Mucn trdllble, we are told, is taken to teach young princes
the art of reigning; but their education seems to do them
no good. It would be better to begin by teaching them
the art of obeying. The greatest kings whose praises
history tells were not brought up to reign : reigning is a
science we are never so far from possessing as when we
have learnt too much of it, and one we acquire better by
obeying than by commanding. "Nam utilissimus idem
ac brevissimus bonarum malarumque rerum delectus cogi-
tare quid aut nolueris sub alio principe, aut volueris." ^

One result of tViJg larlr nf rnh4-rptnrt- ir tfi#> mrnngfonr>y^
of royal governments which, regulated now on one scheme

* Tacitus, Histori€s^ i. i6. " For the best, and also the shortest way of
finding out what is good and what is bad is to consider what you would
have wished to happen or not to happen, had another than you been
Emperor."

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66 The Social Contract

and now on another, according to the character of the
reigning prince or those who reign for him, cannot for
long have a fixed object or a consistent policy — and this
variability, not found in the other forms of government,
where the prince is always the same, > causes ^he'Statp tn .
K<> g^lyyay*^ gliifting- from principle to principle and from,
project fn prnjent. Thus we may say that gener^y, if a
court is more subtle in intrigue, there is more wisdom in a
senate, and Republics advance towards their ends by more
consistent and better considered policies; while every
revolution in a royal ministry creates a revolution in th%^
State ; for the principle common to all ministers and nearly^
all kings is to do in every respect the reverse of what was/
done by their predecessors. ^

This incoherence further clears up a sophism that is very
familiar to royalist political writers; not only is civil
government likened to domestic government, and the
prince to the father of a family — this error has already
been refuted^ — ^but the prince is also freely credited with
all the virtues he ought to possess, and is supposed to be
always what he should be. This supposition once made,
royal government is clearly preferable to all others,
because it is incontestably the strongest, and, to be the
best also, wants only a corporate will more in conformity
with the general will.

But if, according to Plato, ^ the "king by nature" is
such a rarity, how often will nature and fortune conspire
to give him a crown? And, if royal education necessarily
corrupts those who receive it, what is to be hoped from
a .series of men brought up to reign ? It is, then, wanton
self-deception to confuse royal government with govern-
ment by a good king. To see such government as it is in
itself, we must consider it as it is under princes who are
incompetent or wicked : for either they will come to the
throne wicked or incompetent, or the throne will make
them so.

These difficulties have not escaped our writers, who,
all the same, are not troubled by them. The remedy, they
say, is to obey without a murmur : God sends bad kings
in His wrath, and they must be borne as the scourges of

* In the Politiciis,

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Heaven. Such talk is doubtless edifying ; but it would be
more in place in a pulpit than in a political book. What
are we to think of a doctor who promises miracles, and
whose whole art is to exhort the sufferer to patience?
We know for ourselves that we must put up with a bad
government when it is there; the question is how to find
a good one.

CHAPTER Vn

MIXED GOVERNMENTS

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a simple
government. An isolated ruler must have subordinate
magistrates; a popular government must have a head.
There is therefore, in the distribution of the executive /
power, always a gradation from the greater to the lesser .
number, with the difference that sometimes the greater ■
number is dependent on the smaller, and sometimes the )
smaller on the greater.

Sometimes the distribution is equal, when either the
constituent parts are in mutual dependence, as in the
government of England, or the author ity of each section
is i ndependent, but imperfect, as in Poland. This last
form is bad; for it secures no unitv i n the government,
and the State is left without a bond of union.

Is a simple or a mixe H g^vprnm^r^f fVi^ K^ft^^p Political
writers are always debating the question, which must be
answered as we have already answered a question about
all forms of government.

Simple governmen t- »? !?f^<'**'' '" itself, just because it is
simple. But when the executive power is not sufficientlv
dependent upon the legislative power, t. c. when the prince ,
is more closely related to the Sovereign than the people
to the prince, this lack of proportion must be cured by the I
division of the government ; for all the parts have then J
no less authority over the subjects, while their division |
makes them all together less strong against the Sovereign.

The same disadvantage is also prevented by the appohiC
ment of intermediate magistrates, who leave the govern-
ment entire,, and have the effect only of balancing the

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68 The Social Contract

two powers and maintaining their respective rights.
Government is then not mixed, but moderated.

The opposite disadvantages may be similarly cured,
and, when the government is too lax, tribunals may be
set up to concentrate it. This is done in all democracies.
In the first case, the government is divided to make it
weak ; in the second, to make it strong : for the maxima
of both strength and weakness are found in simple govern-
ments, while the mixed forms result in a mean strength.

CHAPTER VIII

THAT ALL FORMS OF GOVERNMENT DO NOT SUIT
ALL COUNTRIES

I jBERTYs not being a fruit of all climates, is not with in
the reach of all pf^^plp*;- The more this principle, laid
clown by Montesquieu, is considered, the more its truth is
felt; the more it is combated, the more chance is given
to confirm it by new proofs.

In all the governments that there are, the public person
consumes without producing. Whence then does it get
what it consumes? From the labour of its members.
The necessities of the public are supplied out of the super-
fluities of individuals. It follows that the civil State can
subsist only so long as men's labour brings them a return
greater than their needs.

The amount of this excess is not the same in all
countries. In some it is considerable, in others middling,
in yet others nil, in some even negative. The relation of
product to subsistence depends on the fertility of the
climate, on the sort of labour the land demands, on the
nature of its products, on the strength of its inhabitants,
on the greater or less consumption they find necessary,
and on several further considerations of which the whole
relation is made up.

On the other side, all governments are not of the same
nature : some are less voracious than others, and the
differences between them are based on this second prin-
ciple, that the further from their source the public con-
tributions are removled, the more burdensome they become.

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The Social Contract 69

The charge should be measured not by the amount of the
impositions, but by the path they have to travel in order
to get back to those from whom they came. When the
circulation is prompt and well-established, it does not
matter whether much or little is paid ; the people is always
rich and, financially speaking, all is well. On the con-
trary, however little the people gives, if that little does
not return to it, it is soon exhausted by giving continually :
the State is then never rich, and the people is always a
people of beggars.

It follows that, the more the distance between peopleN,
and government increases, the more burdensome tribute
becomes : thus, in a democracy, the people bears the least
charge; in an aristocracy, a greater charge; and, in i
monarchy, the weight becomes heaviest. Monarchy there- /
fore suits only wealthy nations; aristocracy. States of
* middling size and wealtli; and democracy. States that are
small and poor.

In fact, the more we reflect, the more we find the differ-
ence between free and monarchical States to be this : in
the former, everything is used for the public advantage;
in the latter, the public forces and those of individuals are
affected by each other, and either increases as the other
grows weak; finally, instead of governing subjects to
make them happy, despotism makes them wretched in
order to govern them.

We find then, in every climate, natural causes according
to which the form of government which it requires can
be assigned, and we can even say what sort of inhabitants
it should have.

Unfriendly and barren lands, where the product does
not repay the labour, should remain desert and unculti-
vated, or peopled only by savages; lands where men's
labour brings in no more than the exact minimum neces-
sary to subsistence should be inhabited by barbarous
peoples : in such places all polity is imfi osslbler Lands
where the surplus of product over labour is only middling
are suitable for free peoples; those in which the soil is
abundant and fertile and gives a great product for a little
labour call for monarchical government, in order that the
surplus of superfluities among the subjects may be con-
sumed by the luxury of the prince : for it is better for this

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70 The Social Contract

excess to be absorbed by the government than dissipated
among the individuals. I am aware that there are excep-
tions; but these exceptions themselves confirm the rule,
in that sooner or later they produce revolutions which
restore things to the natural order.

General laws should always be distinguished from indi-
vidual causes that may modify their effects. If all the
South were covered wiUi Republics and all the North with
despotic States, it would be none the less true that, in
point of climate, despotism is suitable to hot countries,
barbarism to cold countries, and good polity to temperate
regions. I see also that, the principle being granted,
there may be disputes on its application; it may be said
that there are cold countries that are very fertile, and
tropical countries that are very unproductive. But this
difficulty exists only for those who do not consider the
question in all its aspects. We must, as I have already
said, take labour, strength, consumption, etc., into
account.

/ Take two tracts of equal extent, one of which brings
in five and the other ten. If the inhabitants of the first
consume four and those of the second nine, the surplus of
the first product will be a fifth and that of the second a
tenth. The ratio of these two surpluses will then be
inverse to that of the products, and the tract which pro-

\ duces only five will give a surplus double that of the tract

\ which produces ten.

' But there is no question of a double product, and I
think no one would put the fertility of cold countries, as
a general rule, on an equality with that of hot ones. Let
us, however, suppose this equality to exist : let us, if you
will, regard England as on the same level as Sicily, and
Poland as Egypt — further south, we shall have Africa and
the Indies; further north, nothing at all. To get this
equality of product, what a difference there must be in
tillage : in Sicily, there is only need to scratch the ground ;
in England, how men must toil I But, where more hands
are needed to get the same product, the superfluity must
necessarily be less.

Consider, besides, that the same number of men con-
sume much less in hot countries. The climate requires
sobriety for the sake of health ; and Europeans who try to

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The Social Contract 71

live there as they would at home all perish of dysentery
and indigestion* "We are," says Chardin, "carnivorous
animals, wolves, in comparison with the Asiatics. Some
attribute the sobriety of the Persians to the fact that their
country is less cultivated; but it is my belief that their
country abounds less in commodities because the inhabit-
ants need less. If their frugality," he goes on, "were
the effect of the nakedness of &e land, only the poor would
eat little; but everybody does so. Again, less or more
would be eaten in various provinces, according to the
land's fertility; but the same sobriety is found throughout
the kingdom. They are very proud of their manner of
life, saying that you have only to look at their hue to
recognise how far it excels that of the Christians. In fact,
the Persians are of an even hue; their skins are fair, fine
and smooth; while die hue of their subjects, the Arme-
nians, who live after the European fashion, is rough and
blotchy, and their bodies are gross and unwieldy."

The nearer you get to the equator, the less people live
on. Meat they hardly touch; rice, maize, curcur, millet
and cassava are their ordinary food. There are in the
Indies millions of men whose subsistence does not cost a
halfpenny a day. Even in Europe we find considerable
differences of appetite between Northern and Southern
peoples. A Spaniard will live for a week on a German's
dinner. In the countries in which men are more vora-
cious, luxury therefore turns in the direction of con-
sumption. In England, luxury appears in a well-filled
table; in Italy, you feast on sugar and flowers.

Luxury in clothes shows similar differences. In climates
in which the changes of season are prompt and violent,
men have better and simpler clothes; where they clothe
themselves only for adornment, what is striking is more
thought of than what is useful; clothes themselves are
then a luxury. At Naples, you may see daily walking in
the Pausilippeum men in gold-embroidered upper gar-
ments and nothing else. It is the same with buildings;
magnificence is &e sole consideration where there is
noticing to fear from the air. In Paris and London, you
desire to be lodged warmly and comfortably ; in Madrid,
you have superb salons, but not a window that closes, and
you go to bed in a mere hole.

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In hot countries foods are much more substantial and
succulent; and the third difference cannot but have an
influence on the second. Why are so many vegetables
eaten in Italy? Because there they are good, nutritious
and excellent in taste. In France, where they are
nourished only on water, they are far from nutritious and
are thought nothing of at table. They take up all the
same no less ground, and cost at least as much pains to
cultivate. It is a proved fact that the wheat of Barbary,
in other respects inferior to that of France, yields much
more flour, and that the wheat of France in turn yields
more than that of northern countries; from which it may
be inferred that a like gradation in the same direction,
from equator to pole, is found generally. But is it not an
obvious disadvantage for an equal product to contain
less nourishment?

To all these points may be added another, which at once
depends on and strengthens them. Hot countries need
inhabitants less than cold countries, and can support more
of them. There is thus a double surplus, which is all to
the advantage of despotism. The greater the territory
occupied by a fixed number of inhabitants, the more diffi-
cult revolt becomes, because rapid or secret concerted
action is impossible, and the government can easily un-
mask projects and cut communications; but the more a
numerous/ people is gathered together, the less can the
government usurp the Sovereign's place: the people's
leaders can deliberate as safely in their houses as the
prince in council, and the crowd gathers as rapidly in the
squares as the prince's troops in their quarters. The
advantage of tyrannical government therefore lies in acting
at great distances. With the help of the rallying-points
it establishes, its strength, like that of the lever,^ grows
with distance. The strength of the people, on the other
hand, acts only when concentrated : when spread abroad,

^ This does not contradict what I said before (Book ii, ch. ix) about
the disadvantages of great States; for we were then dealing with the
authority of the government over the members, while here we are dealing
with its force against the subjects. Its scattered members serve it as rally-
ing-points for action against the people at a distance, but it has no rallying-
point for direct action on its members themselves. Thus the length of the
lever is its weakness in the one case, and its strength in the other.

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it evaporates and is lost, like powder scattered on the
ground, which catches fire only grain by grain. The
least populous countries are thus the fittest for tyranny :
fierce animals reign only in deserts.

CHAPTER IX

THE MARKS OF A GOOD GOVERNMENT \

The question "What absolutely is the best govern-
ment?" is unanswerable as well as indeterminate; or
rather, there are as many good answers as there are
possible combinations in the absolute and relative situa-
tions of all nations.

But if it is asked by what sign we may know that a
given people is well or ill governed, that is another matter,
and the question, being one of fact, admits of an answer.

It is not, however, answered, because every-one wants
to answer it in his own way. Subjects extol public t ran=
qiTi?1i^y, ^'^-^^^^^^ ^nHlviHna^ liberty; the one class prefers
security of possessions, the other that of person; the one
regards as the lDest government that which is most severe,
the other maintains that the mildest is the best; the one
wants crimes punished, the other wants them prevented;
the one wants the State to be feared by its neighbours,
the other prefers that it should be ignored; the one is
content if money circulates, the other demands that the
people shall have bread. Even if an agreement were
come to on these and similar points, should we have got
any further? As moral qualities do not admit of exact
measurement, agreement about the mark does not mean
agreement about the valuation.

For my part, I am continually astonished that a mark /
so simple is not recognised, or that men are of so bad
faith as not to admit it. What is the end of political
association? The preservation and prosperity of its
members. And what is the surest mark of their preserva-
tion and prosperity? Ttii>;r rmmKAro ^r^^ i^p^^lpfi'nn

Seek then nowhere else this mark that is in dispute. The
rest being equal, Ihe government under which, without
external ^\^^, yitKmit natnralUati on Of colonies, th e

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citizens increase ^nH multiply most, is beyond question
the best.' The government under which a . people wanes
and <timintcVif>js ^ ^^ft wnfst. Calr.iilatnrs^ it IS itil for
you to count, to measure, to compare.^

CHAPTER X

THE ABUSE OF GOVERNMENT AND ITS TENDENCY
TO DEGENERATE

ftl^ ^h^ pflrtirnlar will Sif-f^ nrMicfanfly in oppr>c;f;r^|7 fn

the general will^ the frovftrnment conti nually e3^erts itself
against the Sovereignty. The greater this exertion be-
comes, the more the constitution changes ; and, as there
is in this case no other corporate will to create an equi-

^ On the same principle it should be judged what centuries deserve the pre-
ference for human prosperity. Those in which letters and arts have flourished
have been too much admired, because the hidden object of their culture has
not been fathomed, and their fatal effects not taken into account. " Idque
apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutls esset." [** Fools
called 'humanity' what was a part of slavery," Tacitus, Agricola^ 31.]
Shall we never see in the maxims books lay down the vulgar interest that
makes their writers speak ? No, whatever they may say, when, despite its
renown, a country is depopulated, it is not true that all is well, and it is
not enough that a poet should have an income of 100,000 francs to make
his age the best of all. Less attention should be paid to the apparent
repose and tranquillity of the rulers than to the well-being of their nations
as wholes, and above all of the most numerous States. A hail-storm lays
several cantons waste, but it rarely makes a famine. Outbreaks and civil
wars give rulers rude shocks, but diey are not the real ills of peoples, who
may even get a respite, while there is a dispute as to who shall tyrannise
over them. Their true prosperity and calamities come from their perma-
nent condition : it is when the whole remains crushed beneath the yoke,
that decay sets in, and that the rulers destroy them at will, and '* ubi soli-
tudinem &ciunt, [Mkcem appellant" ['* Where they create solitude, they
odl it peace," Tacitus, Agricda^ 31.] When the bickerings of the great
^turbed the kingdom of France, and the Coadjutor of Paris took a dagger
in his pocket to the Parliament, these things did not prevent the people of
France from prospering and multiplying in dignity, ease and freedom.
Long ago Greece nouriSied in the midst of the most savage wars ; blood
ran in torrents, and yet the whole country was covered with inhabitants.
It appeared, says Macchiavelli, that in the midst of murder, proscription
and dvil war, our republic only throve : the virtue, morality and inde-
pendence of the citizens did more to strengthen it than all their dissensions
had done to enfeeble it A little disturbance gives the soul elasticity ;
what makes the race truly prosperous is not so much peace as liberty.

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The Social Contract 75

librium by resisting the will of the prince, sooner or later
the prince must inevitably suppress the Sovereign and\
break the social treaty. This is the unavoidable and \
inherent defect which, from the very birth of the body I
politic, tends ceaselessly to destroy it, as age and death f
end by destroying the human body. ^/

There are two general courses by which government
degenerates : i. e. when it undeigoesj;QnJxaLCJiQn»_ or when
the State. is.. d issolved. »v

Government undergoes contraction when it passes from \
the many to the few, th at is, from de mocracy to aristo- \
crac y^ anyTfom aristocracy to royalty. T o do so "is~ Its I
natural propensity.^ If it took the backward course from ^

^ The slow forma^tion and the progress of the Repablic of Venice in its
lagoons are a notable instance of this sequence ; and it is most astonishing
that, after more than twelve hundred years' existence, the Venetians seem
to be still at the second stage, which they reached with the Serrar di Con-
siglio in 1 198. As for the ancient Dukes who are brought up against them,
it is proved, whatever the Squittinio della libertd vemta may say of them,
th?t they were in no sense Sovereigns.

A case certain to be cited against my view is that of the Roman Republic,
which, it will be said, followed exactly the opposite course, and passed from
monarchy to aristocracy and from aristocracy to democracy. I by no
means take this view of it.

What Romulus first set up was a mixed government, which soon deteri-
orated into despotism. From special causes, the State died an untimely
death, as new-bom children sometimes perish without reaching manhood.
The expulsion of the Tarquins was the real period of the birth of the
Republic. But at first it took on no constant form, because, by not
abolishing the patriciate, it left half its work undone. For, by this means,
hereditary aristocracy, the worst of all legitimate forms of administration,
remained in conflict with democracy, and the form of the government, as
Macchiavelli has proved, was only fixed on the establishment of the tribu-
nate : only then was there a true government and a veritable democracy.
In fact, the people was then not onl^ Sovereign, but also magistrate and
judge ; the senate was only a subordinate tribunal, to temper and concen-
trate the government, and the consuls themselves, though they were
patricians, first magistrates, and absolute generals in war, were in Rome
itself no more than presidents of the people.

From that point, the government followed its natural tendency, and
inclined strongly to aristocracy. The patriciate, we may say, abolished
itself, and the aristocracy was found no longer in the body of patricians as
at Venice and Genoa, but in the body of the senate, which was composed
of patricians apd plebeians, and even in the body of tribunes when they began
to usurp an active function : for names do not affect facts, and, when the
people has rulers who govern for it, whatever name they bear, the govern-
ment is an aristocracy.

The abuse of aristocracy led to the civil wars and the triumvirate. Sulla,

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76 The Social Contract

the few to the many, it could be said that it was relaxed ;
by this inverse sequence is impossible.

Indeed, g^vftrnm^ntg novpr chan ge their form except
wh^n thpir enftrgry jf^ fYhangf^H and IpJaves them tOO weak
to leeep what tht^y hav<> If a government at once ex-
tended its sphere and relaxed its stringency, its force
would become absolutely nil, and it would persist still
less. It is therefore necessary to wind up the spring and
tighten the hold as it gives way : or else the State it
sustains will come to grief.

The dissolution of the State may come about in either
of two ways.

First, when the prince ceases to administer the State
in accordance with the laws, and usurjps the Sovereign
power. A remarkable change then occurs r^dt' the
government, but the State, undergoes contraction ; I mean
that t he great State is dissolved" a nd anothpr is formprt
within I t / cQmpQ5 ifd ^r^u^y nf th#> mpmbprs nf the govern^
ment, which becomes for the rest of the people merely
^ master and tyrant.^ So that the moment the government
usurps the Sovereignty, the sonjal nnmpart is brpk;en^
and all private citizens recover by right their natural
liberty, and are forced, but not bound, to obey.

The same thing happens when the members of the
government severely usurp the power they should exercise
only as a body ; this is as great an infraction of the laws,
and results in even greater disorders. There are then,
so to speak, as many princes as there are magistrates,
and the State, no less divided than the government, either
perishes or changes its form.

When the State is dissolved, the abuse of government,
whatever it is, bears the common name of qnarcji^ To
distinguish, democracy degenerates into o cluocrac^ and
aristocracy into oli^^Ghyt and I would add that royalty
degenerates into tyrojor^ but this last word is ambiguous
and needs explanation.

In vulgar usage, a tyrant is a king who governs violently
and without regard for justice and law. In the exact
sense, a tyrant is an individual who arrogates to himself

Julius Csesar and Augustus became in fact real monaTchs ; and finally,
under the despotism of Tiberius, the State was dissolved. Roman history
then confirms, instead of invalidating, the principle I have laid down.

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The Social Contract 77

the royal authority without having a right to it. This is
how the Greeks understood the word " tyrant " : they
applied it indifferently to good and bad princes whose
authority was not legitimate.^ Tyrant and usurper aire
thus perfectly synonymous terms.

In order that I may give different things different
names, I call him who usurps the royal authority Si dyrant,
and him who usurps the sovereign power a despot, ^jpue
tyrant is he who thrusts himself in contrary fdTfHe Taws to
govern in accordance with the laws ; the despot is he who
sets himself above the laws themselves. Thus the tyrant
cannot be a despot, but the despot is always a tyrant.

CHAPTER XI

THE DEATH OF THE BODY POLITIC

Such is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best
constituted governments. If Sparta and Rome perished,
what State can hope. to endure for ever? If we would set
up a long-lived form of government, let us not even
dream of making it eternsd. If we are to succeed, we
must not attempt the impossible, or flatter ourselves that
we are endowing the work of man with a stability of which
human conditions do not permit.

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to
die as soon as it is born, and carries in itself the causes
of its destruction. But both may have a constitution that
is more or less robust and suited to preserve them a longer
or a shorter time. The constitution of man is the work
of nature ; that of the State the work of art. It is not in

^ Omnes enim et habentur et dicuntur tyranni, qui potestate utuntur
perpetua in ea civitate quse libertate usa est (Cornelius Nepos, Lt/i of
Miltiades). [For all those are called and considered tyrants, who hold per-
petual power in a State that has known liberty.] It is true that Aristotle
\Nicomachean Ethics^ Book viii, chapter z) distinguishes the tyrant
from the king by the &ct that the former governs in his own interest, and
the latter only for the good of his subjects ; but not only did all Greek
authors in general use the word tyrant in a different sense, as appears most
clearly in Xenophon's Hieroy but also it would follow from Aristotle's dis-
tinction that, from the very beginning of the world, there has not yet been
a single king.

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The Social Contract

men's power to prolong their own lives; but it is for them
to prolong as much as possible the life of the State, by
giving it the best possible constitution. The best consti-
tuted State will have an end; but it will end later than
any other, unless some unforeseen accident brings about
its untimely destruction.

•^ The life-principle of the body politic lies in the sovereign
authority. The legislative power is the heart of the St^te ;
the executive power is its brain, which causes the mdye-
ment of all the parts. The brain may become paralysed
and the individual still live. A man may remain an
imbecile and live; but as soon as the heart ceases Itt)
^perform its functions, the animal is dead. ^

The State subsists by means not of the laws, but of the\
legislative power. Yesterday's law is not binding to-day ;
but silence is taken for tacit consent, and the Sovereign
is held to confirm incessantly the laws it does not abrogate
as it might. All that it has once declared itself to will it
wills always, unless it revokes its declaration.

Why then is so much respect paid to old laws? For
this very reason. We must believe that nothing but the
/ excellence of old acts of will can have preserved them so
long : if the Sovereign had not recognised them as
I throughout salutary, it would have revoked them a
I thousand times. This is why, so far from growing weak,
I the laws continually gain new strength in any well consti-
I tuted State; the precedent of antiquity makes them daily
1 more venerable : while wherever the laws grow weak as
I they become old, this proves that there is no longer a
[legislative power, and diat the State is dead.

CHAPTER XII

HOW THE SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY MAINTAINS ITSELF

^ The Sovereign, having no force other than the legis-
lative power, acts only by means of the laws; and the
laws being solely the authentic acts of the general will,
the Sovereign cannot act save when the people is
assembled. The people in assembly, I shall be told, is

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The Social Contract 79

a mere chimera. It is so to-day, but two thousand years
agfo it was not so. Has man's nature changed?

The bounds of possibility, in moral matters, are less
narrow than we imagine : it is our weaknesses, our vices
and our prejudices that confine them. Base souls have no
belief in great men; vile slaves smile in mockery at the
name of liberty.

Let us judge of what can be done by what ha^s b^^^
j£m^, I shall say nothing of the Republics of ancient
Greece ; but the Roman Republic was, to my mind, a great
State, and the town of Rome a great town. The last
census showed that there were in Rome four hundred
thousand citizens capable of bearing arms, and the last
computation of the population of the Empire showed over
four million citizens, excluding subjects, foreigners,
women, children and slaves.

What difficulties might not be supposed to stand in
the way of the frequent assemblage of the vast population
of this capital and its neighbourhood. Yet few weeks
passed without the Roman people being in assembly, and
even being so several times. It exen;^ised not only the
tights of Sovereiigntv. but also a part of those of govern-
mfiaL. It dealt with certain matters, and judged certam
cases, and this whole people was found in the public
meeting-place hardly less often as magistrates than as
citizens.

If we went back to the earliest history of nations, we
should find that most ancient governments, even those of
monarchical form, such as the Macedonian and the
Prankish, had similar councils. In any case, the one incon-
testable fact I have given is an answer to all difficulties ;
it is good logic to reason from the actual to the possible.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SAME (continued)

It is not enough for the assembled people to have once
fixed the constitution of the State by giving its sanction
to a body of law ; it is not enough for it to have set up a
perpetual government, or provided once for all for the

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80 The Social Contract

election of magistrates. Besides the extraordinary assem-
blies unforeseen circumstances may demand, there must be
fixed periodical assemblies which cannot be abrogated or
prorogued, so that on the proper day the people is legiti-
mately called together by law, without need of any formal
summoning.

r— But, apart from these assemblies authorised by their
date alone, every assembly of the people not summoned
by the magistrates appointed for that purpose, and in
accordance with the prescribed forms, should be regarded
as unlawful, and all its acts as null and void, because the
command to assemble should itself proceed from the law.
The greater or less frequency with vhich lawful assem-
blies should occur depends on so m.any considerations that
no exact rules about them can be given. It can only be

Csaid generally that the stronger the government the more
often should the Sovereign show itself.

This, I shall be told, may do for a single town; but
what is to be done when thfe State includes several? Is
the sovereign authority to be divided? Or is it to be
concentrated in a single town to which all the rest are
made subject?

Neither the one nor the other, I reply. First, ^the sove -
reign authority is one and simple, and cannot be divided
wi^out being destroyed, in tne second place, one town
cannot, any more than one nation, legitimately be made
subject to another, because the essence of the body politic
lies in the reconciliation of obedience and liberty, and the
words subject and Sovereign are identical correlatives the
idea of which meets in the single word "citizen."

I answer further that the union of several towns in a
single city is always bad, and that, if we wish to make
sudi a union, we should not expect to avoid its natural
disadvantages. It is useless to bring up abuses that
belong to great States against one who desires to see only
small ones ; but how can small States be given the strength
to resist great ones, as formerly the Greek towns resisted
the Great King, and more recently Holland and Switzer-
land have resisted the House of Austria?

Nevertheless, if the State cannot be reduced to the right
limits, there remains still one resource; this is, to allow
no capital, to make the scat of government move from

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The Social Contract 8i

town to town, and to assemble by turn in each the Pro-
vincial Estates of the country.

People the territory evenly, extend everywhere the same
rights, bear to every place in it abundance and life : by
these means will the State become at once as strong and
as well gfoverned as possible. Remember that the walls
of towns are built of the ruins of the houses of the country-
side. For every palace I see raised in the capital, my
mind*s eye sees a whole country made desolate.

CHAPTER XIV
THE SAME (continued)

The moment the people is legitimately assembled as a ,
sovereign body, the jurisdiction of the government wholly
lapses, the executive power is suspended, and the person
of the meanest citizen is as sacred and inviolable as that
of the first magistrate; for in the presence of the person
represented, representatives no longer exist. Most of the
tumults that arose in the comitia at Rome were due to
ignorance or neglect of this rule. The consuls were in
them merely the presidents of the people; the tribunes
were mere speakers ; ^ the senate was nothing at all.

These intervals of suspension, during whidi the prince
recognises or ought to recognise an actual superior, have
always been viewed by him with alarm ; and these assem-
blies of the people, which are the aegis of the body politic
and the curb on tiie government, have at all times been
the horror of rulers : who therefore never spare pains,
objections, difficulties, and promises, to stop the citizens
from having them. When the citizens are greedy,
cowardly, and pusillanimous, and love ease more than
liberty, they do not long hold out against the redoubled
efforts of the government; and thus, as the resisting force
incessantly grows, the sovereign authority ends by dis-
appearing, and most cities fall and perish before their
time.

' In nearly the same sense as this word has in the English Parliament.
The similarity of these functions would have brought the consuls and the
tribunes into conflict, even had all jurisdiction been suspended.

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82 The Social Contract

But between the sovereign authority and arbitrary gfovern-
ment there sometimes intervenes a mean power of which
something must be said.

CHAPTER XV

DEPUTIES OR REPRESENTATIVES

As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business
of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their
money than with their persons, the State is not far from its
fall. When it is necessary to march out to war, they pay
troops and stay at home : when it is necessary to meet in
council, they name deputies and stay at home. By reason
of idleness and money, they end by having soldiers to
enslave their country and representatives to sell it.

It is through the hustle of commerce and the arts,
through the greedy self-interest of profit, and through
softness and love of amenities that personal services are
replaced by money payments. Men surrender a part of
their profits in order to have time to increase them at
leisure. Make gifts of money, and you will not be long
without chains. The word finance is a slavish word,
unknown in the city-state. In a country that is truly free,
the citizens do everything with their own arms and nothing
by means of money; so far from paying to be exempted
from their duties, they would even pay for the privilege
of fulfilling them themselves. I am far from taking the
common view : I hold enforced labour to be less opposed
to liberty than taxes.

The better the constitution of a State is, the more do
public affairs encroach on private in the minds of the
citizens. Private affairs are even of much less importance,
because the aggregate of the common happiness furnishes
a greater proportion of that of each individual, so that
there is less for him to seek in particular cares. In a
well-ordered city every man flies to the assemblies : under
a bad government no one cares to stir a step to get to them,
because no one is interested in what happens there, because
it is foreseen that the general will will not prevail, and lastly

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The Social Contract 83

because domestic cares are all-absorbing. Good laws
lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about
worse. As soon as any man says of the affairs of theS^^
State What does it matter to me? the State may be given v?'^
up for lost. . ^

The lukewarmness of patriotism, the activity of private
interest, the vastness of States, conquest and the abuse
of government suggested the method of having deputies
or representatives of the people in the national assemblies.
These are what, in some countries, men have presumed
to call the Third Estate. Thus the individual interest of
two orders is put first and second; the public interest
occupies only the third place.

Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it inalien-
able, cannot be represented; it lies essentially in the
general will, and will does not admit of representation : it
is either the same, or other; there is no intermediate^
possibility. The deputies of the people, therefore, are ^
not and cannot be its representatives : they are merely its
stewards, and can carry through no definitive acts. Every
law the people has not ratified in person is null and void —
is, in fact, not a law. The people of England regards
itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only
during the election of members of parliament. As soon
as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.
The use it makes of the short moments of liberty it enjoys
shows indeed that it deserves to lose them.

The idea of representation is modern; it comes to us
from feudal government, from that iniquitous and absurd
system which degrades humanity and dishonours the name
of man. In ancient republics and even in monarchies,
the people never had representatives; the word itself was
unknown. It is very singular that in Rome, where the
tribunes were so sacrosanct, it was never even imagined
that they could usurp the functions of the people, and
that in the midst of so great a multitude they never
attempted to pass on their own authority a single ple-
biscitum. We can, however, form an idea of the diffi-
culties caused sometimes by the people being so numerous,
from what happened in the time of the Gracchi, when
some of the citizens had to cast their votes from the roofs
of buildings.

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Where right and liberty are everything, disadvantages
count for nothing. Among this wise people everything
was given its just value, its lictors were allowed to do
what its tribunes would never have dared to attempt; for
it had no fear that its lictors would try to represent it.

To explain, however, in what way the tribunes did
sometimes represent it, it is enough to conceive how the
government represents the Sovereign. Law being purely
the declaration of the general will, it is clear that, in the
exercise of the legislative power, the people cannot be
represented ; but in that of the executive power, which is
only the force that is applied to give the law effect, it both
can and should be represented. We thus see that if we
looked closely into the matter we should find that very
few nations have any laws. However that may be, it is
certain that the. tribunes, possessing no executive power,
could never represent the Roman people by right of the
powers entrusted to them, but only by usurping those of
the senate.

In Greece, all that the people had to do, it did for itself ;
it was constantly assembled in the public square. The
Greeks lived in a mild climate ; they had no natural greed ;
slaves did their work for them; tiieir great concern was
with liberty. Lacking the same advantages, how can you
preserve the same rights? Your severer climates add to
your needs; ^ for half the year your public squares are
uninhabitable; the flatness of your languages unfits them
for being heard in the open air; you sacrifice more for
profit than for liberty, and fear slavery less than poverty.

What then? Is liberty maintained only by the help of
slavery? It may be so. Extremes meet. Everything
that is not in the course of nature has its disadvantages,
civil society most of all. There are some unhappy cir-
cumstances in which we can only keep our liberty at
others' expense, and where the citizen can be perfectly free
only when the slave is most a slave. Such was the case
with Sparta. As for you, modern peoples, you have no
slaves, but you are slaves yourselves; you pay for their

^ To adopt in cold countries the luxury and efTeminacy ot the East is
to desire to submit to its chains ; it is indeed to bow to them far more
inevitably in our case than in theirs.

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liberty with your own. It is in vain that you boast of this
preference; I find in it more cowardice than humanity.

I do not mean by all this that it is necessary to have
slaves, or that the right of slavery is legitimate: I am
merely giving the reasons why modern peoples, believing
themselves to be free, have representatives, while ancient
peoples had none. In any case, the moment a people
allows itself to be represented, it is no longer free : it no
longer exists.

All things considered, I do not see that it is possible
henceforth for the Sovereign to preserve among us the
exercise of its rights, unless the city is very small. But if
it is very small, it will be conquered? No. I will show
later on how the external strength of a great people ^ may
be combined with the convenient polity and good order of
a small State.

CHAPTER XVI

THAT THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT IS NOT A
CONTRACT

The legislative power once well established, the next
thing is to establish similarly the executive power; for
this latter, which operates only by particular acts, not
being of the essence of the fcM'mer, is naturally separate
from it. Were it possible for the Sovereign, as such, to
possess the executive power, right and fact would be so
confounded that no one could tell what was law and what
was not ; and the body politic, thus disfigured, would soon
fall a prey to the violence it was instituted to prevent.

As the citizens, by the social contract, are all equal, all
can prescribe what all should do, but no one has a right to
demand that another shall do what he does not do himself.
It is strictly this right, which is indispensable for giving
the body politic life and movement, that the Sovereign,
in instituting the government, confers upon the prince.

^ I had intended to do this in the sequel to this work, when in dealing
with external relations I came to the subject of confederations. The subject
is quite new, and its principles have still to be laid down.

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It has been held that this act of establishment was a
contract between the people and the rulers it sets over
itself, — a contract in which conditions were laid down
between the two parties binding the one to command and
the other to obey. It will be admitted, I am sure, that this
is an odd kind of contract to enter into. But let us see
if this view can be upheld.

First, the supreme authority can no more be modified
than it can be alienated ; to limit it is to destroy it. It is
absurd and contradictory for the Sovereign to set a
superior over itself; to bind itself to obey a master would
be to return to absolute liberty.

Moreover, it is clear that this contract between the
people and such and such persons would be a particular
act; and from this it follows that it can be neither a law
nor an act of Sovereignty, and that consequently it would
be illegitimate.

It is plain too that the contracting parties in relation to
each other would be under the law of nature alone and
wholly without guarantees of their mutual undertakings,
a position wholly at variance with the civil state. He who
has force at his command being always in a position to
control execution, it would come to the same thing if the
name "contract" were given to the act of one man who
said to another; "I give you all my goods, on condition
that you give me back as much of them as you please."

There is only one contract in the State, and that is the
act of association, which in itself excludes the existence of
a second. It is impossible to conceive of any public
contract that would not be a violation of the first.

CHAPTER XVII

THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT

Under what general idea then should the act by which
government is instituted be conceived as falling? I will
begin by stating that the act is complex, as being composed
of two others — the establishment ' of the law and its
execution.

By the former, the Sovereign decrees that there shall

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be a governing body established in this or that form ; this
act is dearly a law.

By the latter, the people nominates the rulers who are
to be entrusted with the government that has been
established. This nomination, being a particular act, is
clearly not a second law, but merely a consequence of the
first and a function of government. \

The difficulty is to understand how there can be a i
governmental act before government exists, and how the
people, which is only Sovereign or subject, can, undei^
certain circumstances, become a prince or magistrate. \

It is at this point that there is revealed one of the \
astonishing properties of the body politic, by means of
which it reconciles apparently contradictory operations;
for this is accomplished by a sudden conversion of
Sovereignty into democracy, so that, without sensible
change, and merely by virtue of a new relation of all to all,
the citizens become magistrates and pass from general to
particular acts, ^ from legislation to the execution of the
law.

This changed relation is no speculative subtlety without
instances in practice : it happens every day in the English
Parliament, where, on certain occasions, the Lower House
resolves itself into Grand Committee, for the better
discussion of affairs, and thus, from being at one moment
a sovereign court, becomes at the next a mere commission ;
so that subsequently it reports to itself, as House of
Commons, the result of its proceedings in Grand Com-
mittee, and debates over again under one name what it
has already settled under another.

It is, indeed, the peculiar advantage of democratic
government that it can be established in actuality by a
simple act of the general will. Subsequently, this
provisional government remains in power, if this form is
adopted, or else establishes in the name of the Sovereign
the government that is prescribed by law; and thus the
whole proceeding is regular. It is impossible to set up
government in any other manner legitimately and in
accordance with the principles so far laid down.

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CHAPTER XVIII

HOW TO CHECK THE USURPATIONS OF GOVERNMENT

What we have just said cocifirms Chapter XVI, and
makes it clear that the institution of government is not
a contract, but a law ; that the depositaries of the executive
power are not the people's masters, but its officers; that
it can set them up and pull them down when it likes ; that
for them there is no question of contract, but of obedience ;
and that in taking charge of the functions the State
imposes on them they are doing no more than fulfilling
their duty as citizens, without having the remotest right
to argue about the conditions.

When therefore the people sets up an hereditary
government, whether it be monarchical and confined to one
family, or aristocratic and confined to a class, what it enters
into is not an undertaking; the administration is given
a provisional form, until the people chooses to order it

. otherwise.

It is true that such changes are always dangerous, and
that the established government should never be touched
except when it comes to be incompatible with the public
good; but the circumspection this involves is a maxim
of policy and not a rule of right, and the State is no more
bound to leave civil authority in the hands of its rulers

\than military authority in the hands of its generals.

It is also true that it is impossible to be too careful to
observe, in such cases, all the formalities necessary to
distinguish a regular and legitimate act from a seditious
tumult, and the will of a whole people from the clamour of a
faction. Here above all no further concession should be
made to the untoward possibility than cannot, in the
strictest logic, be refused it. From this obligation the
prince derives a great advantage in preserving his power
despite the people, without it being possible to say he
has usurped it; for, seeming to avail himself only of his
rights, he finds it very easy to extend them, and to prevent,
under the pretext of keeping the peace, assemblies that are
destined to the re-establishment of order; with the result
that he takes advantage of a silence he does not allow to

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be broken, or of irregularities he causes to be committed,
to assume that he has the support of those whom fear
prevents from speaking-, and to punish those who dare to
speak. Thus it was that the decemvirs, first elected for
one year and then kept on in office for a second, tried to
perpetuate their power by forbidding the comitia to
assemble; and by this easy method every government in
the world, once clothed with the public power, sooner or
later usurps the sovereign authority.

The periodical assemblies of which I have already spoken
are designed to prevent or postpone this calamity, above
all when they need no formal summoning; for in that case,
the prince cannot stop them without openly declaring him-
self a law-breaker and an enemy of the State.

The opening of these assemblies, whose sole qbject is
the maintenance of the social treaty, should always take
the form of putting two propositions that may not be
suppressed, which should be voted on separately.

The first is : " Does it please the Sovereign to preserve
the present form of government? "

The second is : " Does it please the people to leave its
administration in the hands of those who are actually in
charge of it? "

I am here assuming what I think I have shown; that
there is in the State no fundamental law that cannot be
revoked, not excluding the social compact itself; for if all
the citizens assembled of one accord to break the compact,
it is impossible to doubt that it would be very legitimately
broken. Grotius even thinks that each man can renounce
his membership of his own State, and recover his natural
liberty and his goods on leaving the country.* It would
be indeed absurd if all the citizens in assembly could not
do what each can do by himself.

^ Provided, of course, he does not leave to escape his obligations and
avoid having to serve his country in the hour of need. Flight in such a
case would be criminal and punishable, and would be, not withdrawal, but
desertion.

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BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

THAT THE GENERAL WILL IS INDESTRUCTIBLE

As long as several men in assembly regard themselves
as a single body, they have only a single will which is
concerned with their common preservation and general
. well-being. In this case, all the springs of the State are
vigorous and simple and its rules clear and luminous;
there are no embroilments or conflicts of interests; the
common good is everywhere clearly apparent, and only
good sense is needed to perceive it. Peace, unity and
equality are the enemies of political subtleties. Men who
are upright and simple are difficult to deceive because of
their simplicity ; lures and ingenious pretexts fail to impose
upon them, and they are not even subtle enough to be
dupes. When, among the happiest people in the world,
bands of peasants are seen regulating affairs of State
under an oak, and always acting wisely, can we help
scorning the ingenious methods of other nations, which
make themselves illustrious and wretched with so much
art and mystery?

A State so governed needs very few laws; and, as it
becomes necessary to issue new ones, the necessity is
universally seen. The first man to propose them merely
says what all have already felt, and there is no question of
factions or intrigues or eloquence in order to secure the
passage into law of what every one has already decided to
do, as soon as he is sure that the rest will act with him.

Theorists are led into error because, seeing only States
that have been from the beginning wrongly constituted,
they are struck by the impossibility of applying such a
policy to them. They make great game of all the
absurdities a clever rascal or an insinuating speaker might
get the people of Paris or London to believe. They do not
know that Cromwell would have been put to " the bells "
by the people of Berne, and the Due de Beaufort on the
treadmill by the Genevese.

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The Social Contract 91

But when the social bond begins to be relaxed and the
State to grow weak, when particular interests begin to
make themselves felt and the smaller societies to exercise
an influence over the larger, the common interest changes
and finds opponents : opinion is no longer unanimous ;
the general will ceases to be the will of all; contradictory
views and debates arise ; and the best advice is not taken
without question.

Finally, when the State, on the eve of ruin, maintains
only a vain, illusory and formal existence, when in every
heart the social bond is broken, and the meanest interest
brazenly lays hold of the sacred name of "public good,"
the general will becomes mute : all men, guided by secret
motives, no more give their views as citizens than if the
State had never been; and iniquitous decrees directed
solely to private interest gtt passed under the name of
laws. '

Does it follow from this that the general will is
exterminated or corrupted ? Not at all : it is always
constant, unalterable and pure; but it is subordinated to
other wills which encroach upon its sphere. Each man, in
detaching, his interest from the common interest, sees
clearly that he cannot entirely separate them ; but his share
in the public mishaps seems to him negligible beside the
exclusive good he aims at making his own. Apart from
this particular good, he wills the general good in his own
interest, as strongly as any one else. Even in selling his
vote for money, he does not extinguish in himself the
general will, but only eludes it. The fault he commits is
that of changing the state of the question, and answering
something different from what he is asked. Instead of
saying, by his vote, " It is to the advantage of the State,"
he says, ** It is of advantage to this or that man or party
that this or that view should prevail." Thus the law of
public order in assemblies is not so much to maintain in
them the general will as to secure that the question be
always put to it, and the answer always given by it.

I could here set down many reflections on the simple
right of voting in every act of Sovereignty — a right
which no-one can take from the citizens — and also on the
right of stating views, making proposals, dividing and
discussing, which the government is always most careful

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to leave solely to its members; but this important subject
would need a treatise to itself, and it is impossible to say
everything in a single work.

CHAPTER II

VOTING

It may be seen, from the last chapter, that the way in
which general business is managed may give a clear
enough indication of the actual state of morals and the
health of the body politic. The more concert reigns in the
assemblies, that is, the nearer opinion approaches unani-
mity, the greater is the dominance of the general will.
On the other hand, long debates, dissensions and tumult
proclaim the ascendancy of particular interests and the
decline of the State.

This seems less clear when two or more orders enter
into the constitution, as patricians and plebeians did at
Rome; for quarrels between these two orders often
disturbed the comitia, even in the best days of the
Republic. But the exception is rather apparent than real ;
for then, through the defect that is inherent in the body
politic, there were, so to speak, two States in one, and
what is not true of the two together is true of either
separately. Indeed, even in the most stormy times, the
plebiscita of the people, when the Senate did not interfere^
with them, always went through quietly and by large*
majorities. The citizens having but one interest, the
people had but a single will.

At the other extremity of the circle, unanimity recurs;
this is the case when the citizens, having fallen into
servitude, have lost both liberty and will. Fear and
flattery then change votes into acclamation; deliberation
ceases, and only worship or malediction is left. Such
was the vile manner in which the senate expressed its
views under the Emperors. It did so sometimes with
absurd precautions. Tacitus observes that, under Otho,
the senators, while they heaped curses on Vitellius,
contrived at the same time to make a deafening noise, in

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The Social Contract 93

order that, should he ever become their master, he might
not know what each of them had said.

On these various considerations depend the rules by
which the methods of counting votes and comparing
opinions should be regulated, according as the general
will is more or less easy to discover, and the State more or
less in its decline.

There is but one law which, from its nature, needs
unanimous consent. This is the social compact; for civil
association is the most voluntary of all acts. Every man
being born free and his own master, no-one, under any
pretext whatsoever, can make any man subject without
his consent. To decide that the son of a slave is born a
slave is to decide that he is not born a man.

If then there are opponents when the social compact is
made, their opposition does not invalidate the contract,
but merely prevents them from being included in it. They
are foreigners among citizens. When the State is
instituted, residence constitutes consent; to dwell within
its territory is to submit to the Sovereign.*

Apart from this primitive contract, the vote of the
majority always binds all the rest. This follows from the
contract itself. But it is asked how a man can be both
free and forced to conform to wills that are not his own.
How are the opponents at once free and subject to laws
they have not agreed to?

I retort that the question is wrongly put. The citizen
gives his consent to all the laws, including those which are
passed in spite of his opposition, and even those which
punish him when he dares to break any of them. The
constant will of all the members of the State is the
general will; by virtue of it they are citizens and free.^
When in the popular assembly a law is proposed, what
the people is asked is not exactly whether it approves or

^ This should of course be understood as applying to a free State ; for
elsewhere fi&mily, goods, lack of a refuge, necessity, or violence may detain
a man in a country against his will ; and then his dwelling there no longer
by itself implies his consent to the contract or to its violation.

■ At Genoa, the word Liberty may be read over the front of the prisons
and on the chains of the galley-slaves. This application of the device is
good and just It is indeed only male£aictors of all estates who prevent the
citizen from being free. In the country in which all such men were in the
galleys, the most perfect liberty would be enjoyed.

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94 The Social Contract

rejects the proposal, but whether it is in conformity with
the general will, which is their will. Each man, in giving
his vote, states his opinion on that point ; and the general
will is found by counting votes. When therefore the
opinion that is contrary to my own prevails, this proves
neither more nor less than that I was mistaken, and that
what I thought to be the general will was not so. .JLLttiy
particular opinion had y ^^^^f*^^ ^^^^ day I sbon^^ hav*^
acnievcd the opposite "of jvhat was my wjlLL-an d-it is in
j^^^afifi^^^^ ' ^khould ^ oTTiave^en i ree..

This presupposes, indeed, that all the qualities of the
general will still reside in the majority : when they cease
to do so, whatever side a man may take, liberty is no
longer possible.

In my earlier demonstration of how particular wills are
substituted for the general will in public deliberation, I
have adequately pointed out the practicable methods of
avoiding this abuse; and I shall have more to say of
them later on. I have also given the principles for
determining the proportional number of votes for declaring
that will. A difference of one vote destroys equality; a
single opponent destroys unanimity; but between equality
and unanimity, there are several grades of unequal
division, at each of which this proportion may be fixed
in accordance with the condition and the needs of the
body politic.

There are two general rules that may serve to regulate
this relation. First, the more grave and important the
' questions discussed, the nearer should the opinion that
is to prevail approach unanimity. Secondly, the more
the matter in hand calls for speed, the smaller the pre-
scribed difference in the numbers of votes may be allowed
to become : where an instant decision has to be reached,
a majority of one vote should be enough. The first of
these two rules seems more in harmony with the laws,
and the second with practical affairs. In any case, it is
the combination of them that gives the best proportions
for determining the majority necessary.

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The Social Contract 95

CHAPTER III

ELECTIONS

In the elections of the prince and the magistrates,
which are, as I have said, complex acts, there are two
possible methods of procedure, choice and lot. Both
have been employed in various republics, and a highly
complicated mixture of the two still survives in the election
of the Doge at Venice.

"Election by lot," says Montesquieu, "is democratic
in nature." I agree that it is so; but in what sense?
"The lot," he goes on, "is a way of making choice that
is unfair to nobody ; it leaves each citizen a reasonable hope
of serving his country." These are not reasons.

If we bear in mind that the election of rulers is a
function of government, and not of Sovereignty, we shall
see why the lot is the method more natural to democracy,
in which the administration is better in proportion as the
number of its acts is small.

In every real democracy, magistracy is not an advan-
tage, but a burdensome diarge which cannot justly be
imposed on one individual rather than another. The law
alone can lay the charge on him on whom the lot falls.
For, the conditions being then the same for all, and the
choice not depending on any human will, there is no
particular application to alter the universality of the law.

In an aristocracy, the prince chooses the prince, the
government is preserved by itself, and voting is rightly
ordered.

The instance of the election of the Doge of Venice
confirms, instead of destroying, this distinction ; the mixed
form suits a mixed government. For it is an error to take
the government of Venice for a real aristocracy. If the
people has no share in the government, the nobility is
itself the people. A host of poor Barnabotes never gets
near any magistracy, and its nobility consists merely in
the empty title of Excellency, and in the right to sit in
the Great Council. As this Great Council is as numerous
as our General Council at Geneva, its illustrious members
have no more privileges than our plain citizens. It is

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indisputable that, apart from the extreme disparity
between the two republics, the bourgeoisie of Geneva is
exactly equivalent to the patriciate of Venice ; our natives
and inhabitants correspond to the townsmen and the
people of Venice; our peasants correspond to the subjects
on the mainland ; and, however that republic be regarded,
if its size be left out of account, its government is no more
aristocratic than our own. The whole difference is that,
having no life-ruler, we do not, like Venice, need to use
the lot.

Election by lot would have few disadvantages in a real
democracy, in which, as equality would everywhere exist
in morals and talents as well as in principles and fortunes,
it would become almost a matter of indifference who was
chosen. \^ But I ^ave already said that a real democracy is
only an ideal. ^

When choice and lot are combined, positions that
require special talents, such as military posts, should be
filled by the former; the latter does for cases, such as
judicial offices, in which good sense, justice, and integrity
are enough, because in a State that is wdl constituted,
these qualities are common to all the citizens.

Neither lot nor vote has any place in monarchical
government. The monarch being by right sole prince and
only magistrate, the choice of his lieutenants belongs to
none but him. When the Ahb6 de Saint-Pierre proposed
that the Councils of the King of France should be
multiplied, and their members elected by ballot, he did
not see that he was proposing to change the form of
government.

I should now speak of the methods of giving and
counting opinions in the assembly of the people; but
perhaps an account of this aspect of the Roman constitu-
tion will more forcibly illustrate all the rules I could lay
down. It is worth the while of a judicious reader to
follow in some detail the working of public and private
affairs in a Council consisting of two hundred thousand
men.

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The Social Contract 97

CHAPTER IV

THE ROMAN COMITIA

We are without well-certified records of the first period
of Rome's existence; it even appears very probable that
most of the stories told about it are fables ; indeed, gener-
ally speaking, the most instructive part of the history of
peoples, that which deals with their foundation, is what
we have least of. Experience teaches us every day what
causes lead to the revolutions of empires; but, as no new
peoples are now formed, we have almost nothing beyond
conjecture to go upon in explaining how they were created.

The customs we find established show at least that
these customs had an origin. The traditions that go
back to those origins, that have the greatest authorities
behind them, and that are confirmed by the strongest
proofs, should pass for the most certain. TTiese are the rules
I have tried to follow in inquiring how the freest and most
powerful people on earth exercised its supreme power.

After the foundation of Rome, the new-born republic,
that is, the army of its founder, composed of Albans,
Sabines and foreigners, was divided into three classes,
which, from this division, took the name of tribes. Each
of these tribes was subdivided into ten curuk, and each
curia into decurice, headed by leaders called curiones and
decuriones.'

Besides this, out of each tribe was taken a body of one
hundred Equites or Knights, called a century, which shows
that these divisions, being unnecessary in a town, were
at first merely military. But an instinct for greatness
seems to have led the little township of Rome to provide
itself in advance with a political system suitable for the
capital of the world.

Out of this original division an awkward situation soon
arose. The tribes of the Albans (Ramnenses) and the
Sabines (Tatienses) remained always in the same condition,
while that of the foreigners (Luceres) continually grew
as more and more foreigners came to live at Rome, so
that it soon surpassed the others in strength. Servius
remedied this dangerous fault by changing the principle

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98 The Social Contract

of cleavage, and substituting for the racial division, which
he abolished, a new one based on the quarter of the town
inhabited by each tribe. Instead of three tribes he created
four, each occupying and named after one of the hills of
Rome. Thus, while redressing the inequality of the
moment, he also provided for the future ; and in order that
the division might be one of persons as well as localities,
he forbade the inhabitants of one quarter to migrate to
another, and so prevented the mingling of the races.

He also doubled the three old centuries of Knights and
added twelve more, still keeping the old names, and by
this simple and prudent method, succeeded in making
a distinction between the body of Knights and the people,
without a murmur from the latter.

To the four urban tribes Servius added fifteen others
called rural tribes, because they consisted of those who
lived in the country, divided into fifteen cantons. Subse-
quently, fifteen more were created, and the Roman people
finally found itself divided into thirty-five tribes, as it
remained down to the end of the Republic.

The distinction between urban and rural tribes had one
effect which is worth mention, both because it is without
parallel elsewhere, and because to it Rome owed the pre-
servation of her morality and the enlargement of her
empire. We should have expected that the urban tribes
would soon monopolise power and honours, and lose no
time in bringing the rural tribes into disrepute; but what
happened was exactly the reverse. The taste of the early
Romans for country life is well known. This taste they
owed to their wise founder, who made rural and military
labours go along with liberty, and, so to speak, relegated
to the town arts, crafts, intrigue, fortune and slavery.

Since therefore all Rome's most illustrious citizens lived
in the fields and tilled the earth, men grew used to seeking
there alone the mainstays of the republic. This condition,
being that of the best patricians, was honoured by all
men; the simple and laborious life of the villager was
preferred to the slothful and idle life of the bourgeoisie of
Rome; and he who, in the town, would have been but a
wretched proletarian, became, as a labourer in the fields,
a respected citizen. Not without reason, says Varro, did
our great-souled ancestors establish in the village the

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nursery of the sturdy and valiant men who defended them
in time of war and provided for their Sustenance in time
of peace. Pliny states positively that the country tribes
were honoured because of the men of whom they were
composed; while cowards men wished to dishonour were
transferred, as a public disgrace, to the town tribes. The
Sabine Appius Claudius, when he had come to settle in
Rome, was loaded with honours and enrolled in a rural
tribe, which subsequently took his family name. Lastly,
freedmen always entered the urban, and never the rural,
tribes : nor is there a single example, throughout the
Republic, of a freedman, though he had become a citizen,
reaching any magistracy.

This was an excellent rule; but it was carried so far
that in the end it led to a change and certainly to an
abuse in the political system.

First the censors, after having for a long time claimed
the right of transferring citizens arbitrarily from one tribe
to another, allowed most persons to enrol themselves in
whatever tribe they pleased. This permission certainly did
no good, and further robbed the censorship of one of its
greatest resources. Moreover, as the great and powerful
all got themselves enrolled in the country tribes, while the
freedmen who had become citizens remained with the
populace in the town tribes, both soon ceased to have
any local or territorial meaning, and all were so confused
that the members of one could not be told from those of
another except by the registers; so that the idea of the
word tribe became personal instead of real, or rather
came to be little more than a chimera.

It happened in addition that the town tribes, being
more on the spot, were often the stronger in the comitia
and sold the State to those who stooped to buy the votes
. of the rabble composing them.

As the founder had set up ten cutub in each tribe, the
whole Roman people, which was then contained within
the walls, consisted of thirty curuBy each with its temples,
its gods, its officers, its priests and its festivals, which
were called compitalia and corresponded to the paganalia,
held in later times by the rural tribes.

"When Servius made his new division, as the thirty
curicB could not be shared equally between his four tribes,

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and as he was unwilling to interfere with them, they
became a further division of the inhabitants of Rome,
quite independent of the tribes: but in the case of the
rural tribes and their members there was no question of
cuticBy as the tribes had then become a purely civil institu-
tion, and, a new system of levying troops having been
introduced, the military divisions of Romulus were super-
fluous. Thus, although every citizen was enrolled in a
tribe, there were very many who were not members of a
curia.

Servius made yet a third division, quite distinct from
the two we have mentioned, which became, in its effects,
the most important of all. He distributed the whole
Roman people into six classes, distinguished neither by
place nor by person, but by wealth; the first classes
included the rich, the last the poor, and those between
persons of moderate means. These six classes were sub-
divided into one hundred and ninety-three other bodies,
called centuries, which were so divided that the first class
alone comprised more than half of them, while the last
comprised only one. Thus the class that had the smallest
number of members had the largest number of centuries,
and the whole of the last class only counted as a single
subdivision, although it alone included more than half the
inhabitants of Rome.

In order that the people might have the less insight into
the results of this arrangement, Servius tried to give it a
military tone : in the second class he inserted two centuries
of armourers, and in the fourth two of makers of instru-
ments of war : in each class, except the last, he distin-
guished young and old, that is, those who were under an
obligation to bear arms and those whose age gave them
legal exemption. It was this distinction, rather than that
of wealth, which required frequent repetition of the census
or counting. Lastly, he ordered that the assembly should
be held in the Campus Martins, and that all who were of
age to serve should come there armed.

The reason for his not making in the last class also the
division of young and old was that the populace, of whom
it was composed, was not given the right to bear arms
for its country : a man had to possess a hearth to
acquire the right to defend it, and of all the troops of

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The Social Contract loi

beggars who to-day lend lustre to the armies of kings,
there is perhaps not one who would not have been driven
with scorn out of a Roman cohort, at a time when soldiers
were the defenders of liberty.

In this last class, however, proletarians were distin-
guished from capite censu The former, not quite reduced
to nothing, at least gave the State citizens, and some-
times, when the need was pressing, even soldiers. Those
who had nothing at all, and could be numbered only by
counting heads, were regarded as of absolutely no account,
and Marius was the first who stooped to enrol them.

Without deciding now whether this third arrangement
was good or bad in itself, I think I may assert that it could
have been made practicable only by the simple morals, the
disinterestedness, the liking for agriculture and the scorn
for commerce and for love of gain which characterised the
early Romans. Where is the modern people among whom
consuming greed, unrest, intrigue, continual removals,
and perpetual changes of fortune, could let such a system
last for twenty years^ without turning the State upside
down? We must indeed observe that morality and the
censorship, being stronger than this institution, corrected
its defects at Rome, and that the rich man found himself
degraded to the class of the poor for making too much
display of his riches.

. From all this it is easy to understand why only five
classes are almost always mentioned, though there were
really six. The sixth, as it furnished neither soldiers to
the army nor votes in the Campus Martins,* and was
almost without function in the State, was seldom regarded
as of any account.

These were the various ways in which the Roman people
was divided. Let us now see the effect on the assemblies.
When lawfully summoned, these were called comitia: they
were usually held in the public square at Rome or in the
Campus Martins, and were distinguished as Comitia
Curiatay Comitia Centuriatay and Comitia Trihutay accord-
ing to the form under which they were convoked. The

* I say ** in the Campus Martius " because it was there that the comitia
assembled by centuries ; in its two other forms the people assembled in the
forum or elsewhere 5 and then the capite censi had as much influence and
authority as the foremost citizens.

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Comitia Cutiata were founded by Romulus ; the Centuriata
by Servius ; and the Tributa by the tribunes of the people.
No law received its sanction and no magistrate was
elected, save in the comitia; and as every citizen was
enrolled in a curia, 2l century, or a tribe, it follows that
no citizen was excluded from the right of voting, and
that the Roman people was truly sovereign both de jure
and de facto.

For the comitia to be lawfully assembled, and for their
acts to have the force of law, three conditions were neces-
sary. First, the body or magistrate convoking them had
to possess the necessary authority ; secondly, the assembly
had to be held on a day allowed by law; and thirdly, the
auguries had to be favourable.

The reason for the first regulation needs no explanation ;
the second is a matter of policy. Thus, the comitia might
not be held on festivals or market-days, when the country-
folk, coming to Rome on business, had not time to spend
the day in the public square. By means of the third, the
senate held in check the proud and restive people, and
meetly restrained the ardour of seditious tribunes, who,
however, found more than one way of escaping this
hindrance.

Laws and the election of rulers were not the only
questions submitted to the judgment of the comitia : as
the Roman people had taken on itself the most important
functions of government, it may be said that the lot of
Europe was regulated in its assemblies. The variety of
their objects gave rise to the various forms these took,
according to the matters on which they had to pronounce.

In order to judge of these various forms, it is enough
to compare them. Romulus, when he set up curice, had
in view the checking of the senate by the people, and of
the people by the senate, while maintaining his ascendancy
over both alike. He therefore gave the people, by means
of this assembly, all the authority of numbers to balance
that of power and riches, which he left to the patricians.
But, after the spirit of monarchy, he left all the same a
greater advantage to the patricians in the influence of
their clients on the majority of votes. This excellent
institution of patron and client was a masterpiece of
statesmanship and humanity without which the patriciate,

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The Social Contract 103

being flagrantly in contradiction to the republican spirit,
could not have survived. Rome alone has the honour of
having given to the world this great example, which never
led to any abuse, and yet has never been followed.

As the assemblies by curias persisted under the kings
till the time of Servius, and the reign of the later Tarquin
was not regarded as legitimate, royal laws were called
generally leges curiatce.

Under the Republic, the curicBy still confined to the four
urban tribes, and including only the populace of Rome,
suited neither the senate, which led the patricians, nor
the tribunes, who, though plebeians, were at the head of
the well-to-do citizens. They therefore fell into disrepute,
and their degradation was such, that thirty lictors used
to assemble and do what the Comitia Curiata should have
done.

The division by centuries was so favourable to the
aristocracy that it is hard to see at first how the senate
ever failed to carry the day in the comitia bearing their
name, by which the consuls, the censors and the other
curule magistrates were elected. Indeed, of the hundred
and ninety-three centuries into which the six classes of
the whole Roman people were divided, the first class con-
tained ninety-eight; and, as voting went solely by cen-
turies, this class alone had a majority over all the rest.
When all these centuries were in agreement, the rest of
the votes were not even taken ; the decision of the smallest
number passed for that of the multitude, and it may be
said that, in the Comitia Centuriata, decisions were regu-
lated far more by depth of purses than by the number of
votes.

But this extreme authority was modified in two ways.
First, the tribunes as a rule, and always a great number
of plebeians, belonged to the class of the rich, and so
counterbalanced the influence of the patricians in the first
class.

The second way was this. Instead of causing the
centuries to vote throughout in order, which would have
meant beginning always with the first, the Romans always
chose one by lot which proceeded alone to the election;
after this all the centuries were summoned another day
according to their rank, and the same election was

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repeated, and as a rule confirmed. Thus the authority
of example was taken away from rank, and given to the
lot on a democratic principle.

From this custom resulted a further advantage. The
citizens from the country had time, between the two
elections, to inform themselves of the merits of the can-
didate who had been provisionally nominated, and did not
have to vote without knowledge of the case. But, under
the pretext of hastening matters, the abolition of this
custom was achieved, and both elections were held on the
same day.

The Comitia Trihuta were properly the council of the
Roman people. They were convoked by the tribunes
alone ; at them the tribunes were elected and passed their
plebiscita. The senate not only had no standing in them,
but even no right to be present; and the senators, being
forced to obey laws on which they could not vote, were
in this respect less free than the meanest citizens. This
injustice was altogether ill-conceived, and was alone
enough to invalidate the decrees of a body to which all
its members were not admitted. Had all the patricians
attended the comitia by virtue of the right they had as
citizens, they would not, as mere private individuals, have
had any considerable influence on a vote reckoned by
counting heads, where the meanest proletarian was as
good as the princeps senatus.

It may be seen, therefore, that besides the order which
was achieved by these various ways of distributing so
great a people and taking its votes, the various methods
were not reducible to forms indifferent in themselves, but
the results of each were relative to the objects which
caused it to be preferred.

Without going here into further details, we may gather
from what has been said above that the Comitia Trihuta
were the most favourable to popular government, and the
Comitia Centutiata to aristocracy. The Comitia Curiata^
in which the populace of Rome formed the majority, being
fitted only to further tyranny and evil designs, naturally
fell into disrepute, and even seditious persons abstained
from using a method which too clearly revealed their
projects. It is indisputable that the whole majesty of the
Roman people lay solely in the Comitia Centuriata, which

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The Social Contract 105

alone included all; for the Comitia Curiata excluded the
rural tribes, and the Comitia Tributa the senate and the
patricians. v

As for the method of taking* the vote, it was among the
ancient Romans as simple as their morals, although not
so simple as at Sparta. Each man declared his vote
aloud, and a clerk duly wrote it down; the majority in
each tribe determined the vote of the tribe, the majority of
the tribes that of the people, and so with curicB and cen-
turies. This custom was good as long as honesty was
triumphant among the citizens, and each man was ashamed
to vote publicly in favour of an unjust proposal or an
unworthy subject; but, when the people grew corrupt and
votes were bought, it was fitting- that voting should be
secret in order that purchasers might be restrained by
mistrust, and rogues be given the means of not being
traitors.

I know that Cicero attacks this change, and attributes
partly to it the ruin of the Republic. But though I feel
the weight Cicero's authority must carry on such a point,
I cannot agree with him; I hold, on tie contrary, that,
for want of enough such changes, the destruction of the
State must be hastened. Just as the regimen of health
does riot suit the sick, we should not wish to govern a
people that has been corrupted by the laws that a good
people requires. There is no better proof of this rule than
the long life of the Republic of Venice, of which the
shadow still exists, solely because its laws are suitable
only for men who are wicked.

The citizens were provided, therefore, with tablets by
means of which each man could vote without any one
knowing how he voted : new methods were also introduced
for collecting the tablets, for counting voices, for com-
paring numbers, etc. ; but all these precautions did not
prevent the good faith of the officers charged with these
functions ^ from being often suspect. Finally, to prevent
intrigues and trafficking in votes, edicts were issued; but
their very number proves how useless they were.

Towards the close of the Republic, it was often neces-
sary to have recourse to extraordinary expedients in order

^ Ctistodes, ditibiioreSt rogatores suffragierum.

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to supplement the inadequacy of the laws. Sometimes
miracles were supposed; but this method, while it might
impose on the people, could not impose on those who
governed. Sometimes an assembly was hastily called
together, before the candidates had time to form their
factions : sometimes a whole sitting was occupied with
talk, when it was seen that the people had been won over
and was on the point of taking up a wrong position. But
in the end ambition eluded all attempts to check it; and
the most incredible fact of all is that, in the midst of all
these abuses, the vast people, thanks to its ancient regula-
tions, never ceased to elect magistrates, to pass laws, to
judge cases, and to carry through business both public
and private, almost as easily as the senate itself could
have done.

CHAPTER V

THE TRIBUNATE

When an exact proportion cannot be established between
the constituent parts of the State, or when causes that
cannot be removed continually alter the relation of one
part to another, recourse is had to the institution of a
peculiar magistracy that enters into no corporate unity
with the rest. This restores to each term its right relation
to the others, and provides a link or middle term between
either prince and people, or prince and Sovereign, or, if
necessary, both at once.

This body, which I shall call the trihunate^ is the pre-
server of the laws and of the legislative power. It serves
sometimes to protect the Sovereign against the govern-
ment, as the tribunes of the people did at Rome; some-
times to uphold the government against the people, as
the Council of Ten now does at Venice; and sometimes
to maintain the balance between the two, as the Ephors
did at Sparta.

The tribunate is not a constituent part of the city, and
should have no share in either legislative or executive
power; but this very fact makes its own power the
greater : for, while it can do nothing, it can prevent

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anything from being done. It is more sacred and more
revered, as the defender of the laws, than the prince who
executes them, or than the Sovereign which ordains them.
This was seen very clearly at Rome, when the proud
patricians, for all their scorn of the people, were forced
to bow before one of its officers, who had neither auspices
nor jurisdiction.

The tribunate, wisely tempered, is the strongest support
a good constitution can have; but if its strength is ever
so little excessive, it upsets the whole State. Weakness,
on the other hand, is not natural to it : provided it is
something, it is never less than it should be.

It degenerates into tyranny when it usurps the executive
power, which it should confine itself to restraining, and
when it tries to dispense with the laws, which it should
confine itself to protecting. The immense power of the
Ephors, harmless as long as Sparta preserved its morality,
hastened corruption when once it had begun. The blood
of Agis, slaughtered by these tyrants, was avenged by
his successor ; the crime and the punishment of the Ephors
alike hastened the destruction of the republic, and after
Cleomenes Sparta ceased to be of any account. Rome
perished in the same way : the excessive power of the
tribunes, which they had usurped by degrees, finally
served, with the help of laws made to secure liberty, as
a safeguard for the emperors who destroyed it. As for
the Venetian Council of Ten, it is a tribunal of blood, an
object of horror to patricians and people alike; and, so
far from giving a lofty protection to the laws, it does
nothing, now they have become degraded, but strike in
the darkness blows of which no one dare take note.

The tribunate, like the government, grows weak as the
number of its members increases. When the tribunes of
the Roman people, who first numbered only two, and then
five, wished to double that number, the senate let them
do so, in the confidence that it could use one to check
another, as indeed it afterwards freely did.

The best method of preventing usurpations by so for-
midable a body, though no government has yet made use
of it, would be not to make it permanent, but to regulate
the periods during which it should remain in abeyance.
These intervals, which should not be long enough to give

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abuses time to grow strong, may be so fixed by law that
they can easily be shortened at need by extraordinary
commissions.

This method seems to me to have no disadvantages,
because, as I have said, the tribunate, which forms no
part of the constitution, can be removed without the con-
stitution being affected. It seems to be also efficacious,
because a newly restored magistrate starts not with the
power his predecessor exercised, but with that which the
law allows him.

CHAPTER VI

THE DICTATORSHIP

The inflexibility of the laws, which prevents them from
adapting themselves to circumstances, may, in certain
cases, render them disastrous, and make them bring about,
at a time of crisis, the ruin of the State. The order and
slowness of the forms they enjoin require a space of time
which circumstances sometimes withhold. A thousand
cases against which the legislator has made no provision
may present themselves, and it is a highly necessary part
of foresight to be conscious that everything cannot be
foreseen.

It is wrong therefore to wish to make political institu-
tions so strong as to render it impossible to suspend their
operation. Even Sparta allowed its laws to lapse.

However, none but the greatest dangers can counter-
balance that of changing the public order, and the sacred
power of the laws should never be arrested save when the
existence of the country is at stake. In these rare and
obvious cases, provision is made for the public security
by a particular act entrusting it to him who is most
worthy. This commitment may be carried out in either of
two ways, according to the nature of the danger.

If increasing the activity of the government is a sufficient
remedy, power is concentrated in the hands of one or two
of its members : in this case the change is not in the
authority of the laws, but only in the form of administer-
ing them. If, on the other hand, the peril is of such a

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kind that the paraphernalia of the laws are an obstacle to
their preservation, the method is to nominate a supreme
ruler, who shall silence all the laws and suspend for a
moment the sovereign authority. In such a case, there is
no doubt about the general will, and it is clear that the
people's first intention is that the State shall not perish.
Thus the suspension of the legislative authority is in no
sense its abolition; the magistrate who silences it cannot
make it speak; he dominates it, but cannot represent it.
He can do anything, except make laws.

The first method was used by the Roman senate when,
in a consecrated formula, it charged the consuls to pro-
vide for the safety of the Republic. The second was
employed when one of the two consuls nominated a
dictator : * a custom Rome borrowed from Alba.

During the first period of the Republic, recourse was
very often had to the dictatorship, because the State had
not yet a firm enough basis to be able to maintain itself
by the strength of its constitution alone. As the state of
morality then made superfluous many of the precautions
which would have been necessary at other times, there was
no fear that a dictator would abuse his authority, or try
to keep it beyond his term of office. On the contrary, so
much power appeared to be burdensome to him who was
clothed with it, and he made all speed to lay it down, as
if taking the place of the laws had been too troublesome
and too perilous a position to retain.

It is tiierefore the danger not of its abuse, but of its
cheapening, that makes me attack the indiscreet use of
this supreme magistracy in the earliest times. For as
long as it was freely employed at elections, dedications
and purely formal functions, there was danger of its
becoming less formidable in time of need, and of men
growing accustomed to regarding as empty a title that
was used only on occasions of empty ceremonial.

Towards the end of the Republic, the Romans, having
grown more circumspect, were as unreasonably sparing
in the use of the dictatorship as they had formerly been
lavish. It is easy to see that their fears were without

^ The nomination was made secretly by night, as if there were something
shameful in setting a man above the laws.

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foundation, that the weakness of the capital secured it
against the magistrates who were in its midst; that a
dictator might, in certain cases, defend the public liberty,
but could never endanger it ; and that the chains of Rome
would be forged, not in Rome itself, but in her armies.
The weak resistance offered by Marius to Sulla, and by
Pompey to Caesar, clearly showed what was to be expected
from authority at home against force from abroad.

This misconception led the Romans to make great mis-
takes; such, for example, as the failure to nominate a
dictator in the Catilinarian conspiracy. For, as only the
city itself, with at most some province in Italy, was con-
cerned, the unlimited authority the laws gave to the
dictator would have enabled him to make short work of
the conspiracy, which was, in fact, stifled only by a com-
bination of lucky chances human prudence had ho right
to expect.

Instead, the senate contented itself with entrusting its
whole power to the consuls, so that Cicero, in order to
take effective action, was compelled on a capital point to
exceed his powers; and if, in the first transports of joy,
his conduct was approved, he was justly called, later on, to
account for the blood of citizens spilt in violation of the
laws. Such a reproach could never have been levelled at
a dictator. But the consul's eloquence carried the day;
and he himself, Roman though he was, loved his own
glory better than his country, and sought, not so much
the most lawful and secure means of saving the State, as
to get for himself the whole honour of having done so.^
He was therefore justly honoured as the liberator of Rome,
and also justly punished as a law-breaker. However
brilliant his recall may have been, it was undoubtedly an
act of pardon.

However this important trust be conferred, it is im-
portant that its duration should be fixed at a very brief
period, incapable of being ever prolonged. In the crises
which lead to its adoption, the State is either soon lost,
or soon saved ; and, the present need passed, the dictator-
ship becomes either tyrannical or idle. At Rome, where

^ That is what he could not be sure of, if he proposed a dictator ; for he
dared not nominate himself, and could not be certain that his colleague
would nominate him.

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The Social Contract iii

dictators held office for six months only, most of them
abdicated before their time was up. If their term had
been longer, they might well have tried to prolong it still
further, as the decemvirs did when chosen for a year.
The dictator had only time to provide against the need
that had caused him to be chosen; he had none to think
of further projects.

CHAPTER VII

THE CENSORSHIP

As the law is the declaration of the general will, the
censorship is the declaration of the public judgment :
public opinion is the form of law which the censor
administers, and, like the prince, only applies to particular
cases.

The censorial tribunal, so far from being the arbiter of
the people's opinion, only declares it, and, as soon as the
two part company, its decisions are null and void.

It is useless to distinguish the morality of a nation from
the objects of its esteem ; both depend on the same prin-
ciple and are necessarily indistinguishable. There is no
people on earth the choice of whose pleasures is not
decided by opinion rather than nature. Right men's
opinions, and their morality will purge itself. Men always
love what is good or what they find good ; it is in judging
what is good that they go wrong. This judgment, there-
fore, is what must be regulated. He who judges of
morality judges of honour ; and he who judges of honour
finds his law in opinion.

The opinions of a people are derived from its constitu-
tion; although the law does not regulate morality, it is
legislation that gives it birth. When legislation grows
weak, morality degenerates; but in such cases the judg-
ment of the censors will not do what the force of the laws
has failed to effect.

From this it follows that the censorship may be useful
for the preservation of morality, but can never be so for
its restoration. Set up censors while the laws are vigor-
ous; as soon as they have lost their vigour, all hope is

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gone; no legitimate power can retain force when the laws
have lost it.

The censorship upholds morality by preventing opinion
from growing corrupt, by preserving its rectitude by
means of wise applications, and sometimes even by fixing
it when it is still uncertain. The employment of seconds
in duels, which had been carried to wild extremes in the
kingdom of France, was done away with merely by these
words in a royal edict: "As for those who are cowards
enough to call upon seconds." This judgment, in antici-
pating that of the public, suddenly decided it. But when
edicts from the same source tried to pronounce duelling
itself an act of cowardice, as indeed it is, then, since
common opinion does not regard it as such, the public
took no notice of a decision on a point on which its mind
was already made up.

I have stated elsewhere ^ that as public opinion is not
subject to any constraint, there need be no trace of it in
the tribunal set up to represent it. It is impossible to
admire too much the art with which this resource, which
we moderns have wholly lost, was employed by the
Romans, and still more by the Lacedaemonians.

A man of bad morals having made a good proposal
in the Spartan Council, the Ephors neglected it, and
caused the same proposal to be made by a virtuous citizen.
What an honour for the one, and what a disgrace for
the other, without praise or blame of either ! Certain
drunkards from Samos ^ polluted the tribunal of the
Ephors : the next day, a public edict gave Samians per-
mission to be filthy. An actual punishment would not
have been so severe as such an impunity. When Sparta
has pronounced on what is or is not right, Greece makes
no appeal from her judgments.

* I merely call attention in this chapter to a subject with which I have
dealt at greater length in my Letter to M. cCAlembert,

' They were from another island, which the delicacy of our language
forbids me to name on this occasion.

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The Social Contract 113

CHAPTER VIII

CIVIL RELIGION

At first men had no kings save the gods, and no
government save theocracy. They reasoned like Caligula,
and, at that period, reasoned aright. It takes a long
time for feeling so to change that men can make up their
minds to take their equals as masters, in the hope that
they will profit by doing so.

From the mere fact that God was set over every political
society, it followed that there were as many gods as
peoples. Two peoples that were strangers the one to the
other, and almost always enemies, could not long recog-
nise the same master : two armies giving battle could not
obey the same leader. National divisions thus led to
polytheism, and this in turn gave rise to theological and
civil intolerance, which, as we shall see hereafter, are by
nature the same.

The fancy the Greeks had for rediscovering their gods
among the barbarians arose from the way they had of
regarding themselves as the natural Sovereigns of such
peoples. But there is nothing so absurd as the erudition
which in our days identifies and confuses gods of different
nations. As if Moloch, Saturn and Chronos could be the
same god I As if the Phoenician Baal, the Greek Zeus,
and the Latin Jupiter could be the same I As if there could
still be anything common to imaginary beings with
different names I

If it is asked how in pagan times, where each State had
its cult and its gods, there were no wars of religion, I
answer that it was precisely because each State, having
its own cult as well as its own government, made no
distinction between its gods and its laws. Political war
was also theological; the provinces of the gods were, so
to speak, fixed by the boundaries of nations. The god
of one people had no right over another. The gods of the
pagans were not jealous gods; they shared among them-
selves the empire of the world : even Moses and the
Hebrews sometimes lent themselves to this view by speak-
ing of the God of Israel. It is true, they regarded as

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114 The Social Contract

powerless the gods of the Canaanites, a proscribed people
condemned to destruction, whose place they were to take ;
but remember how they spoke of the divisions of the
neighbouring peoples they were forbidden to attack ! " Is
not the possession of what belongs to your god Chamos
lawfully your due?" said Jephthah to the Ammonites.
" We have the same title to the lands our conquering God
has made his own. " ^ Here, I think, there is a recognition
that the rights of Chamos and those of the God of Israel
are of the same nature.

But when the Jews, being subject to the kings of
Babylon, and, subsequently, to those of Syria, still obsti-
nately refused to recognise any god save their own, their
refusal was regarded as rebellion against their conqueror,
and drew down on them the persecutions we read of in
their history, which are without parallel till the coming of
Christianity.*

Every religion, therefore, being attached solely to the
laws of the State which prescribed it, there was no way
of converting a people except by enslaving it, and there
could be no missionaries save conquerors. The obliga-
tion to change cults being the law to which the van-
quished yielded, it was necessary to be victorious before
suggesting such a change. So far from men fighting for
the gods, the gods, as in Homer, fought for men; each
asked his god for victory, and repayed him with new
altars. The Romans, before taking a city, summoned
its gods to quit it; and, in leaving the Tarentines their
outraged gods, they regarded them as subject to their
own and compelled to do them homage. They left the
vanquished their gods as they left them their laws. A
wreath to the Jupiter of the Capitol was often the only
tribute they imposed.

^ Nonne ea c^uae possidct Chamos deus tuus, tibi jure debentur ? Qudges
xi. 24). Such IS the text in the-Vulgate. Father de Carri^res translates :
'* Do you not r^[ard yourselves as Imving a right to what your god pos-
sesses?" I do not know the force of the Hebrew text: but I perceive
that, in the Vulgate, Jephthah positively recognbes the right of the god
Chamos, and that the French translator weakened this admission by insert-
ing an ''according to you," which is not in the Latin.

^ It is quite clear that the Phocian war, which was called *' the Sacred
War,** was not a war of religion. Its object was the punishment of acts of
sacrilege, and not the conquest of unbelievers.

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The Social Contract 115

Finally, when, along with their empire, the Romans had
spread their cult and their pfods, and had themselves often «
adopted those of the vanquished, by granting to both alike
the rights of the city, the peoples of that vast empire
insensibly found themselves with multitudes of gods and
cults, everywhere almost the same; and thus paganism
throughout the known world finally came to be one and
the same religion.

It was in these circumstances that Jesus came to set
up on earth a spiritual kingdom, which, by separating the
theological from the political system, made the State no
longer one, and brought about the internal divisions which
have never ceased to trouble Christian peoples. As the
new idea of a kingdom of the other world could never
have occurred to pagans, they always looked on the
Christians as really rebels, who, while feigning to submit,
were only waiting for the chance to make themselves inde-
pendent and their masters, and to usurp by guile the
authority they pretended in their weakness to respect*
This was the cause of the persecutions.

What the pagans had feared took place. Then every-
thing changed its aspect : the humble Christians changed
their language, and soon this so-called kingdom of the
other world turned, under a visible leader, into the most
violent of earthly despotisms.

However, as there have always been a prince and civil
laws, this double power and conflict of jurisdiction have
made all good polity impossible in Christian States; and
men have never succeeded in finding out whether they were
bound to obey the master or the priest.

Several peoples, however, even in Europe and its neigh-
bourhood, have desired without success to preserve or
restore the old system : but the spirit of Christianity has
everywhere prevailed. The sacred cult has always
remained or again become independent of the Sovereign,
and there has been no necessary link between it and the
body of the State. Mahomet held very sane views, and
linked his political system well together; and, as long as
the form of his government continued under the caliphs
who succeeded him, that government was indeed one, and
so far good. But the Arabs, having grown prosperous,
lettered, civilised, slack and cowardly, were conquered by

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barbarians : the division between the two powers began
again; and, although it is less apparent among the Ma-
hometans than among the Christians, it none the less
exists, especially in the sect of Ali, and there are States,
such as Persia, where it is continually making itself felt.

Among us, the Kings of England have made themselves
heads of the Church, and the Czars have done the same :
but this title has made them less its masters than its
ministers; they have gained not so much the right to
change it, as the power to maintain it: they are not its
legislators, but only its princes. Wherever the clergy is
a corporate body,^ it is master and legislator in its own
country. There are thus two powers, two Sovereigns, in
England and in Russia, as well as elsewhere.

Of all Christian writers, the philosopher Hobbes alone
has seen the evil and how to remedy it, and 15as dared to
propose the reunion of the two heads of the eagle, and
the restoration throughout of political unity, without
which no State or government will ever be rightly consti-
tuted. But he should have seen that the masterful spirit
of Christianity is incompatible with his system, and that
, the priestly interest would always be stronger than that of
the State. It is not so much what is false and terrible
in his political theory, as what is just and true, that has
drawn down hatred on it.*

I believe that if the study of history were developed from
this point of view, it would be easy to refute the contrary
opinions of Bayle and Warburton, one of whom holds that
religion can be of no use to the body politic, while the
other, on the contrary, maintains that Christianity is its
strongest support. We should demonstrate to the former

* It should be noted that the clergy find their bond of union not so much in
formal assemblies, as in the communion of Churches. Communion and ex-
communication are the social compact of the clergy, a compact which will
always make them masters of peoples and kings. All priests who communi-
cate together are fellow-citizens^ even if they come nrom opposite ends of
the earth. This invention is a masterpiece of statesmanship : there is
nothing like it among pagan priests ; who have therefore never formed a
clerical corporate body.

■ See, for instance, in a letter from Grotius to his brother (April ii,
1643), what that learned man found to praise and to blame in the De Cive,
It is true that, with a bent for indulgence, he seems to pardon the writer
the good for the sake of the bad ; but all men arc not so forgiving.

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The Social Contract 117

that no State has ever been founded without a religious
basis, and to the latter, that the law of Christianity at
bottom does more harm by weakening than good by
strengthening the constitution of the State. To make
myself understood, I have only to make a little more exact
the too vague ideas of religion as relating to this subject.

Religion, considered in relation to society, which is
either general or particular, may also be divided into two
kinds : the religion of man, and that of the citizen. The
first, which has neither temples, nor altars, nor rites, and
is confined to the purely internal cult of the supreme God
and the ^eternal obligations of morality, is the religion of
the Gospel pure and simple, the true theism, what may be
called natural divine right or law. The other, which is
codified in a single country, gives it its gods, its own
tutelary patrons; it has its dc^mas, its rites, and its
external cult prescribed by law; outside the single nation
that follows it, all the world is in its sight infidel, foreign
and barbarous ; the duties and rights of man extend for it
only as far as its own altars. Of this kind were all the
religions of early peoples, which we may define as civil or
positive divine right or law.

There is a third sort of religion of a more singular kind,
which gives men two codes of legislation, two rulers, and
two countries, renders them subject to contradictory
duties, and makes it impossible for them to be faithful both
to religion and to citizenship. Such are the religions of
the Lamas and of the Japanese, and such is Roman
Christianity, which may be called the religion of the priest.
It leads to a sort of mixed and anti-social code which ha^
no name.

In their political aspect, all these three kinds of religion
have their defects. The third is so clearly bad, that it is
waste of time to stop to prove it such. AH that destroys
social unity is worthless; all institutions that set man in
contradiction to himself are worthless.

The second is good in that it unites the divine cult with
love of the laws, and, making country the object of the
citizens' adoration, teaches them that service done to the
State is service done to its tutelary god. It is a form
of theocracy, in which there can be no pontiif save the
prince, and no priests save the magistrates. To die for

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ii8 The Social Contract

one's country then becomes martyrdom; violation of its
laws, impiety; and to subject one who is guilty to public
execration is to condemn him to the anger of the gods :
Sacer estod.

On the other hand, it is bad in that, being founded on
lies and error, it deceives men, makes them credulous and
superstitious, and drowns the true cult of the Divinity in
empty ceremonial. It is bad, again, when it becomes
tyrannous and exclusive, and makes a people bloodthirsty
and intolerant, so that it breathes fire and slaughter, and
regards as a sacred act the killing of every one who does
not believe in its gods. The result is to place such a
people in a natural state of war with all others, so that its
security is deeply endangered.
^ There remains therefore the religion of man or Chris-
tianity — not the Christianity of to-day, but that of the
Gospel, which is entirely different By means of this holy,
sublime, and real religion all men, being children of one
God, recognise one another as brothers, and the society
\ that unites them is not dissolved even at death.

But this religion, having no particular relation to the
body politic, leaves the laws in possession of the force they
have in themselves without making any addition to it;
and thus one of the great bonds that unite society con-
sidered in severalty fails to operate. Nay, more, so far
from binding the hearts of the citizens to the State, it has
the effect of taking them away from all earthly things. I
know of nothing more contrary to the social spirit.

We are told that a people of true Christians would form
the most perfect society imaginable. I see in this sup-
position only one great difficulty : that a society of true
Christians would not be a society of men.

I say further that such a society, with all its perfection,
would be neither the strongest nor the most lasting : the
very fact that it was perfect would rob it of its bond of
union ; the flaw that would destroy it would lie in its very
perfection.

Every one would do his duty ; the people would be law-
abiding, the rulers just and temperate; the magistrates
upright and incorruptible ; the soldiers would scorn death ;
there would be neither vanity nor luxury. So far, so
good; but let us hear more.

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The Social Contract 119

Christianity as a religion is entirely spiritual, occupied
solely with heavenly things; the country of the Christian
is not of this world. He does his duty, indeed, but does
it with profound indifference to the good or ill success of
his cares. Provided he has nothing to reproach himself
with, it matters little to him whether things go well or ill
here on earth. If the State is prosperous, he.hardly dares
to share in the public happiness, for fear he may grow
proud of his country's glory; if the State is languishing,
he blesses the hand of God that is hard upon His people.

For the State to be peaceable and for harmony to be
maintained, all the citizens without exception would have
to be good Christians ; if by ill hap there should be a single
self-seeker or hypocrite, a Catiline or a Cromwell, for
instance, he would certainly get the better of his pious
compatriots. Christian charity does not readily allow a
man to think hardly of his neighbours. As soon as, by
some trick, he has discovered the art of imposing on them
and getting hold of a share in the public authority, you
have a man established in dignity; it is the will of God
that he be respected : very soon you have a power ; it is
God*s will that it be obeyed : and if the power is abused
by him who wields it, it is the scourge wherewith God
punishes His children. There would be scruples about
driving out the usurper : public tranquillity would have to
be disturbed, violence would have to be employed, and
blood spilt; all this accords ill with Christian meekness;
and after all, in this vale of sorrows, what does it matter
whether we are free men or serfs? The essential thing
is to get to heaven, and resignation is only an additional
means of doing so.

If war breaks out with another State, the citizens march
readily out to battle; not one of them thinks of flight;
they do their duty, but they have no passion for victory;
they know better how to die than how to conquer. What
does it matter whether they win or lose? Does not Provi-
dence know better than they what is meet for them ? Only
think to what account a proud, impetuous and passionate
enemy could turn their stoicism ! Set over against them
those generous peoples who were devoured by ardent love
of glory and of their country, imagine your Christian
republic face to face with Sparta or Rome : the pious

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120 The Social Contract

Christians will be beaten, crushed and destroyed, before
they know where they are, or will owe their safety only
to the contempt their enemy will conceive for them. It
was to my mind a fine oath that was taken by the soldiers
of Fabius, who swore, not to conquer or die, but to
come back victorious — and kept their oath. Christians,
would never have taken such an oath; they would have
looked on it as tempting God.

But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic;
the terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches
only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favourable
to tyranny that it always profits by such a rdgime. True
Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and
do not much mind : this short life counts for too little in
their eyes.

I shall be told that Christian troops are excellent. I
deny it. Show me an instance. For my part, I know of
no Christian troops. I shall be told of the Crusades.
Without disputing the valour of the Crusaders, I answer
that, so far from being Christians, they were the priests'
soldiery, /citizens of the Church. They fought for their
spiritual country, which the Church had, somehow or
other, made temporal. Well understood, this goes back
to paganism : as the Gospel sets up no national religion,
a holy war is impossible among Christians.

Under the pagan emperors, the Christian soldiers were
brave; every Christian writer affirms it, and I believe it:
it was a case of honourable emulation of the pagan troops.
As soon as the emperors were Christian, this emulation
no longer existed, and, when the Cross had driven out the
eagle, Roman valour wholly disappeared.

But, setting aside political considerations, let us come
back to what is right, and settle our principles on this
important point. The right which the social compact
gives the Sovereign over the subjects does not, we have
seen, exceed the limits of public expediency.^ The sub-

* ** In the republic," says the Marquis d'Ai^enson, " each man is per-
fectly free in what does not harm others." This is the invariable limitation,
which it is impossible to define more e:(actly. I have not been able to deny
myself the pleasure of occasionally quoting from this manuscript, though it
is unknown to the public, in order to do honour to the memory of a good
and illustrious man, who had kept even in the Ministry the heart of a good
citizen, and views on the government of his country that were sane and
right.

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The Social Contract 121

jects then owe the Sovereign an account of their opinions
only to such an efttent as they matter to the community.
Now, it matters very much to the community that each
citizen should have a religion. That will make him love
his duty; but the dogmas of that religion concern the
State and its members only so far as they have reference
to morality and to the duties which he who professes them
is bound to do to others. Each man may have, over and
above, what opinions he pleases, without it being the
Sovereign's business to take cognisance of them; for, as
the Sovereign has no authority m the other world, what-
ever the lot of its subjects may be in the life to come, that
is not its business, provided they are good citizens in this
life.

There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of
which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as
religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which
a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject.^
While it can compel no one to believe them, it can banish
from the State whoever does not believe them — it can
banish him, not for impiety, but as an anti-social being,
incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacri-
ficing, at need, his life to his duty. If any one, after
publicly recognising these dogmas, behaves as if he does
not believe them, let him be punished by death : he has
committed the worst of all crimes, that of lying before the
law.

The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple,
and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary.
The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent
Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life
to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the
wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws :
these are its positive dogmas. Its negative dogmas I
confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults
we have rejected.

Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance

^ Caesar, pleading for Catiline, tried to establish the dogma that the soul
is mortal : Cato and Cicero, in refutation, did not waste time in philoso-
phising. They were content to show that Caesar spoke Uke a bad citizen,
and brought forward a doctrine that would have a bad effect on the State.
This, in fact, and not a problem of theology, was what the Roman senate
had to judge.

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122 The Social Contract

are, to my mind, mistaken. The two forms are insepar-
able. It is impossible to live at peace with those we
regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God
who punishes them : we positively must either reclaim or
torment them. Wherever theological intolerance is ad-
mitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect ; ^ and as
soon as it has such an effect, the Sovereign is no longer
Sovereign even in the temporal sphere : thenceforth priests
are the real masters, and kings only their ministers.

Now that there is and can be no longer an exclusive
national religion, tolerance should be given to all religions
that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain
nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship. But who-
ever dares to say : Outside the Church is no salvation,
ought to be driven from the State, unless the State is the
Church, and the prince the pontiff. Such a dogma is good
only in a theocratic government; in any other, it is fatal.
The reason for which Henry IV is said to have embraced
the Roman religion ought to make every honest man leave
it, and still more any prince who knows how to reason.

^ Marriage, for instance, being a civil contract, has civil effects without
which society cannot even subsist Suppose a body of clergy should claim
the sole right of permitting this act, a right which every intolerant religion
must of necessity claim, is it not clear that in establishing the authority of
the Church in this respect, it will be destroying that of the prince, who will
have thenceforth only as many subjects as the clergy choose to allow him ?
Being in a position to marry or not to marry people, according to their
acceptance of such and such a doctrine, their admission or rejection of such
and such a formula, their greater or less piety, the Church alone, by the
exercise of prudence and firmness, will dispose of all inheritances, offices
and citizens, and even of the State itself, which could not subsist if it were
composed entirely of bastards ? But, I shall be told, there will be appeals
on the ground of abuse, summonses and decrees ; the temporalities will be
seized. How sad 1 The clergy, however little, I will not say courage, but
sense it has, will take no notice and go its way: it will quietly allow
appeals, summonses, decrees and seizures, and, in the end, will remain the
master. It is not, I think, a great sacrifice to give up a part, when one is
sure of securing all.

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The Social Contract 123

CHAPTER IX

CONCLUSION

Now that I have laid down the true principles of
political right, and tried to give the State a basis of its
own to rest on, I ought next to strengthen it by its external
relations, which would include the law of nations, com-
merce, the right of war and conquest, public right,
leagues, negotiations, treaties, etc. But all this forms a
new subject that is far too vast for my narrow scope. I
ought throughout to have kept to a more limited sphere.

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A DISCOURSE

WHICH WON THE PRIZE AT THE ACADEMY

OF DIJON IN 1750, ON THIS QUESTION

PROPOSED BY THE ACADEMY:

HAS THE RESTORATION OF THE ARTS AND

SCIENCES HAD A PURIFYING EFFECT

UPON MORALS?

Barbarus hie ego sum, qui non intelligor illis. — O^rio.^

^ [Here I am, a barbarian, because men understand me uot.]

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PREFACE

The following pages contain a discussion of one of the
most sublime and interesting of all moral questions. It
is not concerned, however, with those metaphysical subtle-
ties, which of late have found their way into every depart-
ment of literature, and from which even our academic
curricula are not always free. We have now to do with
one of those truths on which the happiness of mankind
depends.

I foresee that I shall not readily be forgiven for having
taken up the position I have adopted. Setting myself up
against all that is nowadays most admired, I can expect
no less than a universal outcry against me : nor is the
approbation of a few sensible men enough to make me
count on that of the public. But I have taken my stand,
and I shall be at no pains to please either intellectuals
or men of the world. There are in all ages men born
tp be in bondage to the opinions of the society in which
they live. There are not a few, who to-day play the
free-thinker and the philosopher, who would, if they had
lived in the time of the League, have been no more than
fanatics. No author, who has a mind to outlive his own
age, should write for such readers.

A word more and I have done. As I did not expect
the honour conferred on me, I had, since sending in my
Discourse, so altered and enlarged it as almost to make it
a new work; but in the circumstances I have felt bound
to publish it just as it was when it received the prize. I
have only added a few notes, and left two alterations
which are easily recognisable, of which the Academy
possibly might not have approved. The respect, gratitude
and even justice I owe to that body seemed to me to
demand this acknowledgment.

127

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A DISCOURSE ON THE

MORAL EFFECTS

OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES

Decipimur specie recti, — Horace.

The question before me is, "Whether the Restoration
of the arts and sciences has had the effect of purifying
or corrupting morals." Which side am I to take? TTiat,
gentlemen, which becomes an honest man, who is sensible
of his own ignorance, and thinks himself none the worse
for it.

I feel the difficulty of treating this subject fittingly,
before the tribunal which is to judge of what I advance.
How can I presume to belittle the sciences before one of
the most learned assemblies in Europe, to commend
ignorance in a famous Academy, and reconcile my con-
tempt for study with the respect due to the truly learned?
I was aware of these inconsistencies, but not dis-
couraged by them. It is not science, I said to myself,
that I am attacking ; it is virtue that I am defending, and
that before virtuous men — ^and goodness is even dearer to
the good than learning to the learned.

What then have I to fear? The sagacity of the
assembly before which I am pleading? That, I acknow-
ledge, is to be feared; but rather on account of faults of
construction than of the views I hold. Just sovereigns
have never hesitated to decide against themselves in doubt-
ful cases; and indeed the most advantageous situation in
which a just claim can be, is that of being laid before a
just and enlightened arbitrator, who is judge in his own
case.

To this motive, which encouraged me, I may add
another which finally decided me. And this is, that as I
have upheld the cause of truth to the best of my natural
abilities, whatever my apparent success, there is one
reward which cannot fail me. That reward I shall find in
the bottom of my heart.

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130 A Discourse on

THE FIRST PART

It is a noble and beautiful spectacle to see man raising
himself, so to speak, from nothing by his own exertions;
dissipating, by the light of reason, all the thick clouds in
which he was by nature enveloped; mounting above him-
self ; soaring in thought even to the celestial regions ;
like the sun, encompassing with giant strides the vast
extent of the universe; and, what is still grander and
more wonderful, going back into himself, there to study
man and get to know his own nature, his duties and
his end. AH these miracles we have seen renewed within
the last few generations.

Europe had relapsed into the barbarism of the earliest
ages; the inhabitants of this part of the world, which is
at present so highly enlightened, were plunged, some
centuries ago, in a state still- worse than ignorance. A
scientific jargon, more despicable than mere ignorance,
had usurped the name of knowledge, and opposed an
almost invincible obstacle to its restoration.

Things had come to such a pass, that it required a
complete revolution to bring men back to common sense.
This came at last from the quarter from which it was
least to be expected. It was the stupid Mussulman, the
eternal scourge of letters, who was the immediate cause
of their revival among us. The fall of the throne of Con-
stantine brought to Italy the relics of ancient Greece; and
with these precious spoils France in turn was enriched.
The sciences soon followed literature, and the art of think-
ing joined that of writing : an order which may seem
strange, but is perhaps only too natural. The world now
began to perceive the principal advantage of an intercourse
with the Muses, that of rendering mankind more sociable
by inspiring them with the desire to please one another
with performances worthy of their mutual approbation.

The mind, as well as the body, has its needs : those
of the body are the basis of society, those of the mind its
ornaments.

So long as government and law provide for the security
and well-being of men in their common life, the arts, litera-
ture and the sciences, less despotic though perhaps more

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The Arts and Sciences 131

powerful, fling garlands of flowers over the chains which
weigh them down. They stifle in men's breasts that
sense of original liberty, for which they seem to have been
born; cause them to love their own slavery, and so make
of them what is called a civilised people.

Necessity raised up thrones ; the arts and sciences have
made them strong. Powers of the earth, cherish all
talents and protect those who cultivate them.^ Civilised
peoples, cultivate such pursuits : to them, happy slaves,
you owe that delicacy and exquisiteness of taste, which is
so much your boast, that sweetness of disposition and
urbanity of manners which make intercourse so easy and
agreeable among you — ^in a word, the appearance of all
the virtues, without being in possession of one of them.

It was for this sort of accomplishment, which is by so
much the more captivating as it seems less affected, that
Athens and Rome were so much distinguished in the
boasted times of their splendour and magnificence : and
it is doubtless in the same respect that our own age and
nation will excel all periods and peoples. An air of
philosophy without pedantry; an address at once natural
and engaging, distant equally from Teutonic clumsiness
and Italian pantomime; these are the effects of a taste
acquired by liberal studies and improved by conversation
with the world. What happiness would it be for those
who live among us, if our external appearance were
always a true mirror of our hearts; if decorum were but
virtue; if the maxims we professed were the rules of our
conduct ; and if real philosophy were inseparable from the
title of a philosopher ! But so many good qualities too
seldom go together; virtue rarely appears in so much
pomp and state.

Richness of apparel may proclaim the man of fortune,

^ Sovereigns always see with, pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement
and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation^ of bullion, increase
ameng their subjects. They very well know that, besides nourishing that
littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants
only binds so many more diains upon the people. Alexander, wishing to
keep the Ichthyophages in a state of dependence, compelled them to give
up fishing, and subsist on the customary food of civilised nations. The
American savages, who go naked, and live entirely on the products of the
chase, have been always impossible to subdue. What yoke, indeed, can
be imposed on men who stand in need of nothing ?

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and elegance the man of taste; but true health and man-
liness are known by different signs. It is under the home-
spun of the labourer, and not beneath the gilt and tinsel
of the courtier, that we should look for strength and vigour
of body.

External ornaments are no less foreign to virtue, which
is the strength and activity of the mind. The honest man
is an athlete, who loves to wrestle stark naked ; he scorns
all those vile trappings, which prevent the exertion of his
strength, and were, for the most part, invented only to
conceal some deformity.

Before art had moulded our behaviour, and taught our
passions to speak an artificial language, our morals were
rude but natural; and the different ways in which we
behaved proclaimed at the first glance die difference of
our dispositions. Human nature was not at bottom better
then than now; but men found their security in the ease
with which they could see through one another, and this
advantage, of which we no longer feel the value, prevented
their having many vices.

In our day, now that more subtle study and a more
refined taste have reduced the art of pleasing to a system,
there prevails in modem manners a servile and deceptive
conformity ; so that one would think every mind had been
cast in the same mould. Politeness requires this thing;
decorum that; ceremony has its forms, and fashion its
laws, and these we must always follow, never the prompt-
ings of our own nature.

We no longer dare seem what we really are, but lie
under a perpetual restraint; in the meantime the herd of
men, which we call society, all act under the same circum-
stances exactly alike, unless very particular and powerful
motives prevent them. Thus we never know with whom
we have to deal; and even to know our friends we must
wait for some critical and pressing occasion ; that is, till
it is too late; for it is on those very occasions that such
knowledge is of use to us.

What a train of vices must attend this uncertainty !
Sincere friendship, real esteem, and perfect confidence are
banished from among men. Jealousy, suspicion, fear,
coldness, reserve, hate and fraud lie constantly concealed
under that uniform and deceitful veil of politeness; that

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boasted candour and urbanity, for which we are indebted
to the light and leading of this age. We shall no longer
take in vain by our oaths the name of our Creator ; but we
shall insult Him with our blasphemies, and our scrupulous
ears will take no offence. We have grown too modest to
brag of our own deserts ; but we do not scruple to decry
those of others. We do not grossly outrage even our
enemies, but artfully calumniate them. Our hatred of
other nations diminishes, but patriotism dies with it.
Ignorance is held in contempt ; but a dangerous scepticism
has succeeded it. , Some vices indeed are condemned and
others grown dishonourable; but we have still many that
are honoured with the names of virtues, and it is become
necessary that we should either have, or at least pretend
to have them. Let who will extol the moderation of our
modern sages, I see nothing in it but a refinement of
intemperance as unworthy of my commendation as their
artificial simplicity.^

Such is the purity to which our morals have attained;
this is the virtue we have made our own. Let the arts
and sciences claim the share they have had in this salutary
work. I shall add but one reflection more; suppose
an inhabitant of some distant country should endeavour to
form an idea of European morals from the state of the
sciences, the perfection of the arts, the propriety of our
public entertainments, the politeness of our behaviour,
the affability of our conversation, our constant professions
of benevolence, and from those tumultuous assemblies of
people of all ranks, who seem, from morning till night,
to have no other care than to oblige one another. Such a
stranger, I maintain, would arrive at a totally false view
of our morality.

Where there is no effect, it is idle to look for a cause :
but here the effect is certain and the depravity actual;
our minds have been corrupted in proportion as the arts
and sciences have improved. Will it be said, that this is
a misfortune peculiar to the present age? No, gentlemen,

^ " I love," said Montaigne, " to converse and hold an argument ; but
only with very few people, and that for my own gratification. For to do so,
by way of affording amusement for the great, or of making a parade of one's
talents, is, in my opinion, a trade very ill-becoming a man of honour." It
is the trade of all our intellectuals, save one.

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the evils resulting from our vain curiosity are as old as
the world. The daily ebb and flow of the tides are not
more regularly influenced by the moon, than the morals
of a people by the progress of the arts and sciences. As
their light has risen above our horizon, virtue has taken
flight, and the same phenomenon has been constantly
observed in all times and places.

Take Egypt, the first school of mankind, that ancient
country, famous for its fertility under a brazen sky ; the
spot from which Sesostris once set out to conquer the
world. Egypt became the mother of philosophy and the
fine arts ; soon she was conquered by Cambyses, and then
successively by the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, and
finally the Turks.

Take Greece, once peopled by heroes, who twice van-
quished Asia. Letters, as yet in their infancy, had not
corrupted the disposition of its inhabitants; but the pro-
gress of the sciences soon produced a dissoluteness of
manners, and the imposition of the Macedonian yoke :
from which time Greece, always learned, always volup-
tuous and always a slave, has experienced amid all its
revolutions no more than a change of masters. Not all
the eloquence of Demosthenes could breathe life into a
body which luxury and the arts had once enervated.

It was not till the days of Ennius and Terence that
Rome, founded by a shepherd, and made illustrious by
peasants, began to degenerate. But after the appearance
of an Ovid, a Catullus, a Martial, and the rest of those
numerous obscene authors, whose very names are enough
to put modesty to the blush, Rome, once the shrine of
virtuq, became the theatre of vice, a scorn among the
nations, and an object of derision even to barbarians.
Thus the capital of the world at length submitted to the
yoke of slavery it had imposed on others, and the very day
of its fall was the eve of that on which it conferred on one
of its citizens the title of Arbiter of Gopd Taste.

What shall I say of that metropolis of the Eastern
Empire, which, by its situation, seemed destined to be the
capital of the world; that refuge of the arts and sciences,
when they were banished from the rest of Europe, more
perhaps by wisdom than barbarism? The most profligate
debaucheries, the most abandoned villainies, the most
atrocious crimes, plots, murders and assassinations form

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the warp and woof of the history of Constantinople. Such
is the pure source from which have flowed to us the floods
of knowledge on which the present age so prides itself.

But wherefore should we seek, in past ages, for proofs
of a truth, of which the present affords us ample evidence?
There is in Asia a vast empire, where learning is held in
honour, and leads to the highest dignities in the state.
If the sciences improved our morals, if they inspired us
with courage and taught us to lay down our lives for the
good of our country, the Chinese should be wise, free and
invincible. But, if there be no vice they do not practise,
no crime with which they are not familiar ; if the sagacity
of their ministers, the supposed wisdom of their laws,
and the multitude of inhabitants who people that vast
empire, have alike failed to preserve them from the yoke
of the rude and ignorant Tartars, of what use were their
men of science and literature? What advantage has that
country reaped from the honours bestowed on its learned
men? Can it be that of being peopled by a race of
scoundrels and slaves?

Contrast with these instances the morals of those few
nations which, being preserved from the contagion of
useless knowledge, have by their virtues become happy
in themselves and afforded an example to the rest of the
world. Such were the first inhabitants of Persia, a nation
so singular that virtue was taught among them in the
same manner as the sciences are with us.. They very
easily subdued Asia, and possess the exclusive glory of
having had the history of their political institutions
regarded as a philosophical romance. Such were the
Scythians, of whom such wonderful eulogies have come
down to us. Such were the Germans, whose simplicity,
innocence and virtue, afforded a most delightful contrast
to the pen of an historian, weary of describing the base-
ness and villainies of an enlightened, opulent and volup-
tuous nation. Such had been even Rome in the days of
its poverty and ignorance. And such has shown itself to
be, even in our own times, that rustic nation, whose justly
renowned courage not even adversity could conquer, and
whose fidelity no example could corrupt.^

^ I dare not speak of those happy nations, who did not even know the
name of many vices, which we find it difficult to suppress ; the savages of
America, whose simple and natural mode of government Montaigne

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It is not through stupidity that the people have pre-
ferred other activities to those of the mind. They were
not ignorant that in other countries there were men who
spent their time in disputing idly about the sovereign
good, and about vice and virtue. They knew that these
useless thinkers were lavish in their own praises, and stig-
matised other nations contemptuously as barbarians. But
they noted the morals of these people, and so learnt what
to think of their learning.^

Can it be forgotten that, in the very heart of Greece,
there arose a city as famous for the happy ignorance of
its inhabitants, as for the wisdom of its laws; a republic
of demi-gods rather than of men, so greatly superior their
virtues seemed to those of mere humanity? Sparta,
eternal proof of the vanity of science, while the vices,
under the conduct of the fine arts, were being introduced
into Athens, even while its tyrant was carefully collecting
together the works of the prince of poets, was driving
from her walls artists and the arts, the learned and their
learning !

The difference was seen in the outcome. Athens be-
came the seat of politeness and taste, the country of
orators and philosophers. The elegance of its buildings
equalled that of its language; on every ^ide might be
seen marble and canvas, animated by the hands of the
most skilful artists. From Athens we derive those
astonishing performances, which will serve as models to
every corrupt age. The picture of Lacedaemon is not so
highly coloured. There, the neighbouring nations used
to say, " men were born virtuous, their native air seeming

preferred, without hesitation, not only to the laws of Plato, but to the most
perfect visions of government philosophy can ever suggest He cites many
examples, striking for those who are capable of appreciating them. But»
what of all that, says he, they can't run to a pair of breeches !

^ What are we to think was the real opinion of the Athenians themselves
about eloquence, when they were so very careful to banish declamation from
that upright tribunal, against whose decision even their gods made no
appeal ? What did the Romans think of physidsms, when they expelled
medicine from the republic? And when the relics of humanity left
amon^ the Spaniards mduced them to forbid their lawyers to set foot in
America, what must they have thought of jurisprudence ? May it not be
said that they thought, by this single expedient, to make reparation for all
the outrages they had committed against the unhappy Indians ?

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to inspire them with virtue." But its inhabitants have left
us nothing but the memory of their heroic actions : monu-
ments that should not count for less in our eyes than the
most curious relics of Athenian marble.

It is true that, among* the Athenians, there were some
few wise men who withstood the general torrent, and pre-
served their integrity even in the company of the muses.
But hear the judgment which the principal, and most un-
happy of them, passed on the artists and learned men of
his day.

"I have considered the poets," says he, "and I look
upon them as people whose talents impose both on them-
selves and on others; they give themselves out for wise
men, and are taken for such; but in reality they are
anything sooner than that."

"From the poets," continues Socrates, "I turned to the
artists. Nobody was more ignorant of the arts than
myself; nobody was more fully persuaded that the artists
were possessed of amazing knowledge. I soon discovered,
however, that they were in as bad a way as the poets, and
that both had fallen into the same misconception. Be-
cause the most skilful of them excel others in their
particular jobs, they think themselves wiser than all the
rest of mankind. This arrogance spoilt all their skill in
my eyes, so that, putting myself in the place of the oracle,
and asking myself whether I would rather be what I am
or what they are, know what they know, or know that
I know nothing, I very readily answered, for myself and
the god, that I had rather remain as I am.

"None of us, neither the sophists, nor the poets, nor
the orators, nor the artists, nor I, know what is the nature
of the true, the good, or the beautiful. But there is this
difference between us; that, though none of these people
know anything, they all think they know something;
whereas for my part, if I know nothing, I am at least in
no doubt of my ignorance. So the superiority of wisdom,
imputed to me by the oracle, is reduced merely to my
being fully convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not
know."

Thus we find Socrates, the wisest of men in the judg-
ment of the god, and the most learned of all the Athenians
in the opinion of all Greece, speaking in praise of ignor-

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ance. Were he alive now, there is little reason to think
that our modem scholars and artists would induce him
to change his mind. No, gentlemen, that honest man
would still persist in despising our vain sciences. He
would lend no aid to swell the flood of books that flows
from every quarter : he would leave to us, as he did
to his idisciples, only the example and memory of his
virtues; that is the noblest method of instructing
mankind.

Socrates had begun at Athens, and the elder Cato pro-
ceeded at Rome, to inveigh against those seductive and
subtle Greeks, who corrupted the virtue and destroyed the
courage of their fellow-citizens : culture, however, pre-
vailed. Rome was filled with philosophers and orators,
military discipline was neglected, agriculture was held in
contempt, men formed sects, and forgot their country.
To the sacred names of liberty, disinterestedness and
obedience to law, succeeded those of Epicurus, Zeno and
Arcesilaus. It was even a saying among their own
philosophers that since learned men appeared among them,
honest men had been in eclipse. Before that time the
Romans were satisfied with the practice of virtue; they
were undone when they began to study it.

What would the great soul of Fabricius have felt, if
it had been his misfortune to be called back to life, when
he saw the pomp and magnificence of that Rome, which
his arm had saved from ruin, and his honourable' name
made more illustrious than all its conquests. " Ye gods ! "
he would have said, "what has become of those thatched
roofs and rustic hearths, which were formerly the habita-
tions of temperance and virtue? What fatal splendour
has succeeded the ancient Roman simplicity? What is
this foreign language, this effeminacy of manners? What
is the meaning of these statues, paintings and buildings?
Fools, what have you done? You, the lords of the earth,
have made yourselves the slaves of the frivolous nations
you have subdued. You are governed by rhetoricians,
and it has been only to enrich architects, painters, sculptors
and stage-players that you have watered Greece and Asia
with your blood. Even the spoils of Carthage are the
prize of a flute-player. Romans ! Romans ! make haste
to demolish those amphitheatres, break to pieces those

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statues, burn those paintings ; drive from among you those
slaves who keep you in subjection, and whose fatal arts
are corrupting your morals. Let other hands make them-
selves illustrious by such vain talents; the only talent
worthy of Rome is that of conquering the world and
making virtue its ruler. When Cyneas took the Roman
senate for an assembly of kings, he was not struck by
either useless pomp or studied elegance. He heard there
none of that futile eloquence, which is now the study and
the charm of frivolous orators. What then was the
majesty that Cyneas beheld? Fellow citizens, he saw the
noblest sight that ever existed under heaven, a sight which
not all your riches or your arts can show; an assembly
of two hundred virtuous men, worthy to command in
Rome, and to govern the world."

But let pass the distance of time and place, and let us
see what has happened in our own time and country; or
rather let us banish odious descriptions that might offend
our delicacy, and spare ourselves the pains of repeating
the same ^ings under different names. It was not for
nothing that I invoked the Manes of Fabricius ; for what
have I put into his mouth, that might not have come with
as much propriety from Louis the Twelfth or Henry the
Fourth? It is true that in France Socrates would not
have drunk the hemlock, but he would have drunk of a
potion infinitely more bitter, of insult, mockery and con-
tempt a hundred times worse than death.

Thus it is that luxury, profligacy and slavery, have
been, in all ages, the scourge of the efforts of our pride to
emerge from that happy state of ignorance, in which the
wisdom of providence had placed us. That thick veil with
which it has covered all its operations seems to be a
sufficient proof that it never designed us for such fruitless
researches. But is there, indeed, one lesson it has taught
us, by which we have rightly profited, or which we have
neglected with impunity? Let men learn for once that
nature would have preserved them from science, as a
mother snatches a dangerous weapon from the hands of
her child. Let them know that all the secrets she hides
are so many evils from which she protects them, and that
the very difficulty they find in acquiring knowledge is
not the least of her bounty towards them. Men are per-

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verse; but they would have been far worse, if they had
had the misfortune to be born learned.

How humiliating are these reflections to humanity, and
how mortified by them our pride should be ! What ! it
will be asked, is uprightness the child of ignorance? Is
virtue inconsistent with learning? What consequences
might not be drawn from such suppositions ? But to recon-
cile these apparent contradictions, we need only examine
closely the emptiness and vanity of those pompous titles,
which are so liberally bestowed on human knowledge, and
which so blind our judgment. Let us consider, therefore,
the arts and sciences in themselves. Let us see what must
result from their advancement, and let us not hesitate to
admit the truth of all those points on which our arguments
coincide with the inductions we can make from history.

THE SECOND PART

An ancient tradition passed out of Egypt into Greece,
that some god, who was an enemy to the repose of man-
kind, was the inventor of the sciences.^ What must the
Egyptians, among whom the sciences first arose, have
thought of them? And they beheld, near at hand, the
sources from which they sprang. In fact, whether we
turn to the annals of the world, or eke out with philo-
sophical investigations the uncertain chronicles of history,
we shall not find for human knowledge an origin answer-
ing to the idea we are pleased to entertain of it at present.
Astronomy was born of superstition, eloquence of ambi-
tion, hatred, falsehood and flattery; geometry of avarice;
physics of an idle curiosity ; and even moral philosophy of
human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth
to our vices; we should be less doubtful of their advan-
tages, if they had sprung from our virtues.

^ It is easy to see the allegory in the fable of Prometheus : and it does
not appear that the Greeks, who chained him to the Caucasus, had a
better opinion of him than the Egyptians had of their god Theutus. The
Satyr, says an ancient fable, the first time he saw a fire, was going to kiss
and embrace it ; but Prometheus cried out to him to forbear, or lus beard
would rue it. It bums, says he, everything that touches it.

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Their evil origin is, indeed, but too plainly reproduced in
their objects. What would become of the arts, were they
not cherished by luxury ? If men were not unjust, of what
use were jurisprudence? What would become of history,
if there were no tyrants, wars, or conspiracies ? In a word,
who would pass his life in barren speculations, if every-
body, attentive only to the obligations of humanity and
the necessities of nature, spent his whole life in serving
his country, obliging his friends, and relieving the un-
happy? Are we then made to live and die on the brink
of that well at the bottom of which Truth lies hid? This
reflection alone is, in my opinion, enough to discourage
at first setting out every man who seriously endeavours
to instruct himself by the study of philosophy.

What a variety of dangers surrounds us ! What a
number of wrong paths present themselves in the investiga-
tion ot the sciences ! Through how many errors, more
perilous than truth itself is useful, must we not pass to
arrive at it? The disadvantages we lie under are evident;
for falsehood is capable of an infinite variety of combina-
tions; but the truth has only one manner of being. Be-
sides, where is the man who sincerely desires to find it?
Or even admitting his good will, by what characteristic
marks is he sure of knowing it? Amid the infinite
diversity of opinions where is the criterion ^ by which we
may certainly judge of it? Again, what is still more
difficult, should we even be fortunate enough to discover
it, who among us will know how to make right use of it?

If our sciences are futile in the objects they propose,
they are no less dangerous in the effects they produce.
Being the effect of idleness, they generate idleness in their
turn; and an irreparable loss of time is the first prejudice
which they must necessarily cause to society. To live
without 'doing some good is a great evil as well in the
political as in the moral world; and hence every useless
citizen should be regarded as a pernicious person. Tell
me then, illustrious philosophers, of whom we learn the

^ The less we know, the more we think we know. The peripatetics
doabted of nothing. Did not Descartes construct the universe with cubes
and vortices ? And is there in all Europe one single physicist who does
not boldly explain the inexplicable mysteries of electricity, which will,
perhaps, be for ever the despair of real philosophers ?

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ratios in which attraction acts in vacuo ; and in the revolu-
tion of the planets, the relations of spaces traversed in
equal times; by whom we are taught what curves have
conjugate points, points of inflexion, and cusps ; how the
soul and body correspond, like two clocks, without actual
communication ; what planets may be inhabited ; and what
insects reproduce in an extraordinary manner. Answer
me, I say, you from whom we receive all this sublime
information, whether we should have been less numerous,
worse governed, less formidable, less flourishing, or more
perverse, supposing you had taught us none of all these
fine things.

Reconsider therefore the importance of your produc-
tions; and, since the labours of the most enlightened of
our learned men and the best of our citizens are of so
little utility, tell us what we ought to think of that
numerous herd of obscure writers and useless litterateurs,
who devour without any return the substance of the State.

Useless, do I say ? Would God they were ! Society
would be more peaceful, and morals less corrupt. But
these vain and futile declaimers go forth on all sides,
armed with their fatal paradoxes, to sap the foundations
of our faith, and nullify virtue. They smile contemptu-
ously at such old names as patriotism and religion, and
consecrate their talents and philosophy to the destruction
and defamation of all that men /hold sacred. Not that
they bear any real hatred to virtue or dogma; they are
the enemies of public opinion alone; to bring them to the
foot of the altar, it would be enough to banish them to a
land of atheists. What extravagancies will not the rage
of singularity induce men to commit !

The waste of time is certainly a great evil; but still
greater evils attend upon literature and the arts. One is
luxury, produced like them by indolence and vanity.
Luxury is seldom unattended by the arts and sciences;
and they are always attended by luxury. I know that
our philosophy, fertile in paradoxes, pretends, in contra-
diction to the experience of all ages, that luxury contri-
butes to the splendour of States. But, without insisting
on the necessity of sumptuary laws, can it be denied that
rectitude of morals is essential to the duration of empires,
and that luxury is diametrically opposed to such rectitude ?

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Let it be admitted that luxury is a certain indication of
wealth; that it even serves, if you will, to increase such
wealth : what conclusion is to be drawn from this paradox,
so worthy of the times? And what will become of virtue
if riches are to be acquired at any cost? The politicians
of the ancient world were always talking of morals and
virtue; ours speak of nothing but commerce and money.
One of them will tell you that in such a country a man is
worth just as much as he will sell for at Algiers : another,
pursuing the same mode of calculation, finds that in some
countries a man is worth nothing, and in others still less
than nothing; they value men as they do droves of oxen.
According to them, a man is worth no more to the State,
than the amount he consumes ; and thus a Sybarite would
be worth at least thirty Lacedaemonians. Let these writers
tell me, however, which of the two republics, Sybaris or
Sparta, was subdued by a handful of peasants, and which
became the terror of Asia.

The monarchy of Cyrus was conquered by thirty thou-
sand men, led by a prince poorer than the meanest of
Persian Satraps : in like manner the Scythians, the poorest
of all nations, were able to resist the most powerful
monarchs of the universe. When two famous republics
contended for the empire of the world, the one rich and
the other poor, the former was subdued by the latter.
The Roman empire in its turn, after having engulfed all
the riches of the universe, fell a prey to peoples who knew
not even what riches were. The Franks conquered the
Gauls, and the Saxons England, without any other
treasures than their bravery and their poverty. A band
of poor mountaineers, whose whole cupidity was confined
to the possession of a few sheep-skins, having first given
a check to the arrogance of Austria, went on to crush the
opulent and formidable house of Burgundy, which at that
time made the potentates of Europe tremble. In short, all
the power and wisdom of the heir of Charles the Fifth,
backed by all the treasures of the Indies, broke before a
few herring-fishers. Let our politicians condescend to lay
aside their calculations for a moment, to reflect on these
examples; let them learn for once that money, though it
buys everything else, "cannot buy morals and citizens.
What then is the precise point in dispute about luxury?

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It is to know which is most advantagfeous to empires , that
their existence should be brilliant and momentary, or
virtuous and lasting? I say brilliant, but with what
lustre I A taste for ostentation never prevails in the
same minds as a taste for honesty. No, it is impossible
that understandings, degraded by a multitude of futile
cares, should ever rise to what is truly great and noble;
even if they had the strength, they would want the
courage.

Every artist loves applause. The praise of his contem-
poraries is the most valuable part of his recompense.
What then will he do to obtain it, if he have the misfor-
tune to be born among a people, and at a time, when
learning is in vogue, and the superficiality of youth is in a
position to lead the fashion ; when men have sacrificeci
their taste to those who tyrannise over their liberty, and
one sex dare not approve anything but what is propor-
tionate to the pusillanimity of the other; ^ when the
greatest masterpieces of dramatic poetry are condemned,
and the noblest of musical productions neglected? This
is what he will do. He will lower his genius to the level
of the age, and will rather submit to compose mediocre
works, that will be admired during his life-time, than
labour at sublime achievements which will not be admired
till long after he is dead. Let the famous Voltaire tell us
how many nervous and masculine beauties he has sacrificed
to our false delicacy, and how much that is great and
noble, that spirit of gallantry, which delights in what is
frivolous and petty, has cost him.

It is thus that the dissolution of morals, the necessary
consequence of luxury, brings with it in its turn the cor-
ruption of taste. Further, if by chance there be found

^ I am far from thinking that the ascendancy which women have obtained
over men is an evil in itself. It is a present which nature has made them
for the good of mankind. If better directed, it might be productive of as
much good, as it is now of evil. We are not sufficiently sensible of what
advantage it would be to society to give a better education to that half of
our species which governs the other. Men will always be what women
choose to make them. If you wish then that they should be noble and
virtuous, let women be taught what greatness of soul and virtue are. The
reflections which this subject arouses, and which Plato formerly made,
deserve to be more fully developed by a pen worthy of following so great a
master, and defending so great a cause.

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The Arts and Sciences 145

among men of average ability, an individual with enough
strength of mind to refuse to comply with the spirit of
the age, and to debase himself by puerile productions,
his lot will be hard. He will die in indigence and oblivion.
This is not so much a prediction, as a fact already con-
firmed by experience ! Yes, Carle and Pierre Vanloo, the
time is already come when your pencils, destined to
increase the majesty of our temples by sublime and holy
images, must fall from your hands, or else be prostituted
to adorn the panels of a coach with lascivious paintings.
And you, inimitable Pigal, rival of Phidias and Praxiteles,
whose chisel the ancients wCuld have employed to carve
them gods, whose images almost excuse their idolatry in
our eyes ; even your hand must condescend to fashion the
belly of an ape, or else remain idle.

We cannot reflect on the morality of mankind without
contemplating with pleasure the picture of the simplicity
which prevailed in the earliest times. This image may be
justly compared to a beautiful coast, adorned only by the
hands of nature; towards which our eyes are constantly
turned, and which we see receding with regret. While
men were innocent and virtuous and loved to have the
gods for witnesses of their actions, they dwelt together in
the same huts ; but when they became vicious, they grew
tired of such inconvenient onlookers, and banished them
to magnificent temples. Finally, they expelled their deities
even from these, in order to dwell there themselves ; or at
least the temples of the gods were no longer more magni-
ficent than the palaces of the citizens. This was the height
of degeneracy ; nor could vice ever be carried to greater
lengths than when it was seen, supported, as it were, at
the doors of the great, on columns of marble, and graven
on Corinthian capitals.

As the conveniences of life increase, as the arts are
brought to perfection, and luxury spreads, true courage
flags, the virtues disappear; and all this is the effect of
the sciences and of those arts which are exercised in the
privacy of men's dwellings. When the Goths ravaged
Greece, the libraries only escaped the flames owing to
an opinion that was set on foot among them, that it was
best to leave the enemy with a possession so calcu-
lated to divert their attention from military exercises,

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146 A Discourse on

and keep them engaged in indolent and sedentary
occupations.

Charles the Eighth found himself master of Tuscany
and the kingdom of Naples, almost without drawing
sword ; and all his court attributed this unexpected success
to the fact that the princes and nobles of Italy applied
themselves with greater earnestness to the cultivation of
their understandings than to active and martial pursuits.
In fact, says the sensible person who records these
characteristics, experience plainly tells us, that in military
matters and all that resemble them application to the
sciences tends rather to make men effeminate and
cowardly than resolute and vigorous.

The Romans confessed that military virtue was extin-
guished among them, in proportion as they became con-
noisseurs in the arts of the painter, the engraver and the
goldsmith, and began to cultivate the fine arts. Indeed,
as if this famous country was to be for ever an example
to other nations, the rise of the Medici and the revival of
letters has once more destroyed, this time perhaps for ever,
thejnartial reputation which Italy seemed a few centuries
ago to have recovered.

The ancient republics of Greece, with that wisdom which
was so couspkuous in most of their institutions, forbade
their citizens to pursue all those inactive and sedentary
occupations, which by enervating and corrupting the body
diminish also the vigour of the mind. With what
courage, in fact, can it be thought that hunger and thirst,
fatigues, dangers and death, can be faced by men whom
the smallest want overwhelms and the slightest difficulty
repels? With what resolution can soldiers support the
excessive toils of war, when they are entirely unaccus-
tomed to them? With what spirits can they make forced
marches under officers who have not even the strength
to travel on horseback ? It is no answer to cite the reputed
valour of all the modern warriors who are so scientifically
trained. I hear much of their bravery in a day's battle ; but
I am told nothing of how they support excessive fatigue,
how they stand the severity of the seasons and the in-
clemency of the weather. A little sunshine or snow, or
the want of a few superfluities, is enough to cripple and
destroy one of our finest armies in a few days. Intrepid

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The Arts and Sciences 147

warriors ! permit me for once to tell you the truth, which
you seldom hear. Of your bravery I am fully satisfied. I
have no doubt that you would have triumphed with
Hannibal at Cannae, and at Trasimene : that you would
have passed the Rubicon with Caesar, and enabled him to
enslave his country ; but you never would have been able
to cross the Alps with the former, or with the latter to
subdue your own ancestors, the Gauls.

A war does not always depend on the events of battle :
there is in generalship an art superior to that of gaining
victories. A man may behave with great intrepidity under
fire, and yet be a very had officer. Even in the common
soldier, a little nx>re strength and vigour would perhaps
be more useful than so much courage, which after all is
no protection from death. And what does it matter to
the State whether its troops perish by cold and fever, or
by the sword of the enemy?

If the cultivation of the sciences is prejudicial to military
qualities, it is still more so to moral qualities. Even from
our infancy an absurd system of education serves to adorn
our wit and corrupt our judgment. We see, on every
side, huge institutions, where our youth are educated at
great expense, and instructed in everything but their
duty. Your children will be ignorant of their own
language, when they can talk others which are not
spoken anywhere. They will be able to compose verses
which they can hardly understand; and, without being
capable of distinguishing truth from error, they will possess
the art of making them unrecognisable by specious argu-
ments. But magnanimity, equity, temperance, humanity
and courage will be words of which they know not the
meaning. The dear name of country will never strike on
their ears; and if they ever hear speak of God,* it will
be less to fear, than to be frightened of. Him. I would
as soon, said a wise man, that my pupil had spent his time
in the tennis court as in this manner; for there his body
at least would have got exercise.

I well know that children ought to be kept employed,
and that idleness is for them the danger most to be feared.
But what should they be taught? This is undoubtedly an

^ Pens^es philosophiques (Diderot).

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important question. Let them be taught what they are to
practise when they come to be men ; ^ not what they ought
to forget.

Our gardens are adorned with statues and our galleries
with pictures. What would you imagine these master-
pieces of art, thus exhibited to public admiration, repre-
sent? The great men, who have defended their country,
or the still greater men who have enriched it by their
virtues? Far from it. They are the images of every per-
version of heart and mind, carefully selected from ancient
mythology, and presented to the early curiosity of our
children, doubtless that they may have before their eyes
the representations of vicious actions, even before they are
able to read.

* Such was the education of the Spartans with regard to one of the
greatest of their -kings. It is well worthy of notice, says Montaigne, that
the excellent institutions of Lycurgus, which were in truth miraculously
perfect, paid as much attention to the bringing up of youth as if this were
their principal object, and y6t, at the very seat of the Muses, they make so
little mention of learning that it seems as if their generous-spirited youth
disdained every other restraint, and required, instead of masters of the
sciences, instructors in valour, prudence and justice alone.

Let us hear next what tl^e same writer says of the ancient Persians.
Plato, says he, relates that the heir to the throne was thus brought up.
At his birth he was committed, not to the care of women, but to eunuchs
m the highest authority and near the person of the king, on account of
their virtue. These undertook to render his body beautiful and heAlthy.
At seven years of age they taught him to ride and go hunting. At fourteen
he was placed in the hands of four, the wisest, the most just, the most
temperate and the bravest persons in the kingdom. The first instructed
him in religion, the second taught him to adhere inviolably to truth, the
third to conquer his passions, and the fourth to be afraid of nothing. All,
I may add, taught him to be a good man ; but not one taught him to be
learned.

Astyages, in Xenophon, desires Cyrus to give him an account of his last
lesson. It was this, answered Cyrus, one of the big boys, of the school
having a small coat, gave it to a little boy and took away from him his coat,
which was larger. Our master having appointed me arbiter in the dispute,
I ordered that matters should stand as they were, as each boy seemed to
be better suited than before. The master, however, remonstrated with
me, saying that I considered only convenience, whereas justice ought to
have been the first concern, and justice teaches that no one should suffer
forcible interference with what belongs to him. He added that he was
punished for his wrong decision, just as boys are punished in our country
schools when they forget the first aorist of r<$irrw. My tutor must make
me a fine harangue, in zencre demonstrativo^ before he will persuade me
that his school is as good as this. ,

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The Arts and Sciences 149

Whence arise all those abuses^ unless it be from that
fatal inequality introduced among men by the difference
of talents and the cheapening of virtue? This is the most
evident effect of all our studies, and the most dangerous
of all their consequences. The question is no longer
whether a man is honest, but whether he is clever. We
do not ask whether a book is useful, but whether it is well-
written. Rewards are lavished on wit and ingenuity,
while virtue is left unhonoured. There arc a thousand
prizes for fine discourses, and none for good actions. I
should be glad, however, to know whether the honour
attaching to the best discourse that ever wins the prize
in this Academy is comparable with the merit of having
founded the prize.

A wise man does not go in chase of fortune; but he is
by no means insensible to glory, and when he sees it so
ill distributed, 'his virtue, which might have been animated
by a little emulation, and turned to the advantage of
society, droops and dies away in obscurity and indigence.
It is for this reason that the agreeable arts must in time
everywhere be preferred to the useful; and this truth has
been. but too much confirmed since the revival of the arts
and sciences. Wc have physicists, geometricians, chem-
ists, astronomers, poets, musicians, and painters in plenty ;
but we have no longer a citizen among us ; or if there be
found a few scattered over our abandoned countryside,
they are left to perish there unnoticed and neglected.
Such is the condition to which we are reduced, and such
are our feelings towards those who give us our daily
bread, and our children milk.

I confess, however, that the evil is not so great as it
might have become. The eternal providence, in placing
salutary simples beside noxious plants, and making
poisonous animals contain their own antidote, has taught
the sovereigns of the earth, who are its ministers, to
imitate its wisdom. It is by following this example that
the truly great monarch, to whose glory every age will
add new lustre, drew from the very bosom of the arts and
sciences, the very fountains of a thousand lapses from
rectitude, those famous societies, which, while they are
depositaries of the dangerous trust of human knowledge, y
are yet the sacred guardians of morals, by the attention!

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150 A Discourse on

they pay to their maintenance among themselves in all
their purity, and by the demands which they make on
every member whom they admit.

•These wise institutions, confirmed by his august suc-
cessor and imitated by all the kings of Europe, will serve
at least to restrain men of letters, who, all aspiring to the
honour of being admitted into these Academies, will keep
watch over themselves, and endeavour to make themselves
worthy of such honour by useful performances and irre-
proachable morals. Those Academies also, which, in pro-
posing prizes for literary merit, make choice of such sub-
jects as are calculated to arouse the love of virtue in the
hearts of citizens, prove that it prevails in themselves, and
must give men the rare and real pleasure of finding
learned societies devoting themselves to the enlightenment
of mankind, not only by agreeable exercises of the intellect,
but also by useful instructions.

An objection which may be made is, in fact, only an
additional proof of my argument. So much precaution
proves but too evidently the need for it. We never seek
remedies for evils that do not exist. Why, indeed, must
these bear all the marks of ordinary remedies, on account
of their inefficacy? The numerous establishments in
favour of the learned are only adapted to make men
mistake the objects of the sciences, and turn men's atten-
tion to the cultivation of them. One would be inclined
to think, from the precautions everywhere taken, that we
are overstocked with husbandmen, and are afraid of a
shortage of philosophers. I will not venture here to enter
into a comparison between agriculture and philosophy,
as they would not bear it. I shall only ask What is
philosophy? What is contained in the writings of the
most celebrated philosophers? What are the lessons of
these friends of wisdom. To hear them, should we not
take them for so many mountebanks, exhibiting them-
selves in public, and crying out. Here, Here, come to me,
I am the only true doctor? One of them teaches that
there is no such thing as matter, but that everything exists
only in representation. Another declares that there is no
other substance than matter, and no other God than the
world itself. A third tells you that there are no such
/ hings as virtue and vice, and that moral good and evil

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The Arts and Sciences 151

are chimeras; while a fourth informs you that men are
only beasts of prey, and may conscientiously devour one
another. Why, my great philosophers, do you not reserve
these wise and profitable lessons for your friends and
children? You would soon reap the benefit of them, nor
should we be under any apprehension of our own becoming
your disciples.

Such are the wonderful men, whom their contemporaries
held in the highest esteem during their lives, and to whom
immortality has been attributed since their decease. Such
are the wise maxims we have received from them, and
which are transmitted, from age to age, to our descendants.
Paganism, though given over to all the extravagances of
human reason, has left nothing to compare with the shame-
ful monuments which have been prepared by the art of
printing, during the reign of the gospel. The impious
writings of Leucippus and Diagoras perished with their
authors. Th^ world, in their days, was ignorant of the
art of immortalising the errors and extravagancies of the
human mind. But thanks to the ait of printing ^ and the
use we make of it, the pernicious reflections of Hobbes
and Spinoza will last for ever. Go, famous writings, of
which the ignorance and rusticity of our forefathers would
have been incapable. Go to our descendants, along with
those still more pernicious works which reek of the cor-
rupted manners of the present age ! Let them together
convey to posterity a faithful history of the progress and

^ If we consider the frightfal disorders which printing has already caused
in Europe, and judge of the future by the pr(^ess of its evils from day to
day, it is easy to foresee that sovereigns will hereafter take as much pains
to banisli this dreadful art from their dominions, as they ever took to
encourage it. The Sultan Achmet, yielding to the importunities of certain
pretenders to taste, consented to have a press erected at Constantinople ;
but it was hardly set to work before they were obliged to destroy it, and
throw the plant into a well.

It is related that the Caliph Omar, being asked what should be done with
the library at Alexandria, answered in these words. *' If the books in the
library contain anything contrary to the Alcoran, they are evil and ought
to be burnt ; if they contain only what the Alcoran teaches, they are
superfluous." This reasoning has been cited by our men of letters as the
height of absurdity ; but if Gregory the Great had been in the place of
Omar, and the Gospel in the place of the Alcoran, the library would
still have been burnt, and it would have been perhaps the finest action of
his life.

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152 A Discourse on

advantages of our arts and sciences. If they are read,
they will leave not a doubt about the question we are now
discussing, and unless mankind should then be still more
foolish than we, they will lift up their hands to Heaven
and exclaim in bitterness of heart : " Almighty God ! thou
who boldest in Thy hand the minds of men, deliver us
from the fatal arts and sciences of our forefathers ; give us
back ignorance, innocence and poverty, which alone can
make us happy and are precious in Thy sight."

But if the progress of the arts and sciences has added
nothing to our real happiness; if it has corrupted our
morals, and if that corruption has vitiated our taste, what
are we to think of the herd of text-book authors, who
have removed those impediments ,which nature purposely
laid in the way to the Temple of the Muses, in order to
guard its approach and try the powers of those who might
be tempted to seek knowledge ? What are we to think of
those compilers who have indiscreetly broken open the
door of the sciences, and introduced into their sanctuary
a populace unworthy 'to approach it, when it was greatly
to be wished that all who should be found incapable of
making a considerable progress in the career of learning
should have been repulsed at the entrance, and thereby
cast upon those arts which are useful to society. A msm
who will be all his life a bad versifier, or a third-rate
geometrician, might have made nevertheless an excellent
clothier. Those whom nature intended for her disciples
have not needed masters. Bacon, Descartes and Newton,
those teachers of mankind, had themselves no teachers.
What guide indeed could have taken them so far as their
sublime genius directed them? Ordinary masters would
only have cramped their intelligence, by confining it within
the narrow limits of their own capacity. It was from the
obstacles they met with at first, that they learned to exert
themselves, and bestirred themselves to traverse the vast
field which they covered. If it be proper to allow some
men to apply themselves to the study of the arts and
sciences, it is only those who feel themselves able to walk
alone in their footsteps and to outstrip them. It belongs
only to these few to raise monuments to the glory of the
human understanding. But if we are desirous that
nothing should be above their genius, nothings should be

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The Arts and Sciences 153

beyond their hopes. This is the only encouragement they
require. The soul insensibly adapts itself to the objects
on which it is employed, and thus it is that great occasions
produce great men. The greatest orator in the world was
Consul of Rome, and perhaps the greatest of philosophers
Lord Chancellor of England. Can it be conceived that,
if the iformer had only been a professor at some University,
and the latter a pensioner of some Academy, their works
would not have suffered from their situation. Let not
princes disdain to admit into their councils those who are
most capable of giving them good advice. Let them
renounce the old prejudice, which was invented by the
pride of the great, that the art of governing mankind is
more difficult than that of instructing them/; as if it was
easier to induce men to do good voluntarily, than to compel
them to it by force. Let the learned of the first rank
find an honourable refuge in their courts; let them there
enjoy the only recompense worthy of them, that of pro-
moting by their influence the happiness of the peoples
they have enlightened by their wisdom. It is by this
means only that we are likely to see what virtue, science
and authority can do, when animated by the noblest
emulation, and working unanimously for the happiness
of mankind.

But so long as power alone is on one side, and know-
ledge and Understanding alone on the other, the learned
will seldom make great objects their study, princes will
still more rarely do great actions, and the peoples will
continue to be, as they are, mean, corrupt and miserable.

As for us, ordinary men, on whom Heaven has not been
pleased to bestow such great talents; as we are not
destined to reap such glory, let us remain in our obscurity.
Let us not covet a reputation we should never attain, and
which, in the present state of things, would never make
up to us (or the trouble it would have cost us, even if
we were fully qualified to obtain it. Why should we build
our happiness on the opinions of others, when we can
find it in our own hearts ? Let us leave to others the task
of instructing mankind in their duty, and confine ourselves
to the discharge of our own. We have no occasion for
greater knowledge than this.

Virtue ! sublime science of simple minds, are such

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154 A Discourse on Arts and Sciences

industry and preparation needed if we are to know you?
Are not your principles graven on every heart? Need
we do more, to learn your laws, than examine ourselves,
and listen to the voice of conscience, when the passions
are silent?

This is the true philosophy, with which we must learn
to be content, without envying- the fame of those cele-
brated men, whose names are immortal in the republic of
letters. Let us, instead of envying them, endeavour to
make, between them and us, that honourable distinction
which was* formerly seen to exist between two great
peoples, that the one knew how to speak, and the other
how to act, aright.

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A DISCOURSE

ON A SUBJECT PROPOSED BY THE
ACADEMY OF DIJON:

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF INEQUALITY AMONG

MEN, AND IS n^ AUTHORISED BY

NATURAL LAW?

Non in depravatis, sed in his qua bene secundum naturam
se habent, considerandum est quid sit naturale,

Aristotle, Politics, Bk. i, ch. 2.

[We should consider what is natural not in things which are depraved
but in those which are rightly ordered according to nature.]

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DEDICATION
TO THE

REPUBLIC OF GENEVA

Most Honourable, Magnificent and Sovereign Lords,
convinced that only a virtuous citizen can confer on his
country honours which it can accept, I have been for thirty
years past working to make myself worthy to offer you
some public homage; and, this fortunate opportunity
supplementing- in some degree the insufficiency of my
efforts, I have thought myself entitled to follow in embrac-
ing it the dictates of the zeal which inspires me, rather
than the right which should have been my authorisation.
Having had the happiness to be born among you, how
could I reflect on the equality which nature has ordained
between men, and the inequality which they have intro-
duced, without reflecting on the profound wisdom by which
both are in this State happily combined and made to
coincide, in the manner that is most in conformity with
natural law, and most favourable to society, to the
maintenance of public order and to the happiness of
individuals ? In my researches after the best rules common
sense can lay down for the constitution of a government,
I have been so struck at finding them all in actuality in
your own, that even had I not been born within your walls
I should have thought it indispensable for me to offer this
picture of human society to that people, which of all others
seems to be possessed of its greatest advantages, and to
have best guarded against its abuses.

If I had had to make choice of the place of my birth, I
should have preferred a society which had an extent pro-
portionate to the limits of the human faculties; that is,
to the possibility of being well governed : in which every
person being equal to his occupation, no one should be
obliged to commit to others the functions with which he
was entrusted : a State, in which all the individuals being

157

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158

A Discourse on

well known to one another, neither the secret machinations
of vice, nor the modesty of virtue should be able to escape
the notice and judgment of the public; and in which the
pleasant custom of seeing and ktiowing one another should
make the love of country rather a love of the citizens than
of its soil.

I should have wished to be born in a country in which
the interest of the Sovereign and that of the people must
be single and identical ; to the end that all the movements
of the machine might tend always to the general happi-
ness. And as this could not be the case, unless the
Sovereign and the people were one and the same person,
it follows that I should have wished to be born under a
democratic government, wisely tempered.

I should have wished to live and die free : that is, so far
subject to the laws that neither I, nor anybody else, should
be able to cast off their honourable yoke : the easy and
salutary yoke which the haughtiest necks beir with the
greater docility, as they are made to bear no other.

I should have wished tlien that no one within the State
should be able to say he was above the law ; and that no
one without should be able to dictate so that the State
should be obliged to recognise his authority. For, be
the constitution of a government what it may, if there be
within its jurisdiction a single man who is not subject to
the law, all the rest are necessarily at his discretion. And
if there be a national ruler within, and a foreign ruler
without, however they may divide their authority, it is
impossible that both should be duly obeyed, or that the
State should be well governed.

I should not have chosen to live in a republic of recent
institution, however excellent its laws ; for fear the govern-
ment, being perhaps otherwise framed than the circum-
stances of the moment might require, might disagree with
the new citizens, or they with it, and 3ie State run the
risk of overthrow and destruction almost as soon as it
came into being. For it is with liberty as it is with those
solid and succulent foods, or with those generous wines
which are well adapted to nourish and fortify robust
constitutions that are used to them, but ruin and intoxi-
cate weak and delicate constitutions to which they are
not suited. Peoples once accustomed to masters are not

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The Origin of Inequality 159

in a condition to do without them. If they attempt to
shake off the yoke, they still more estrange themselves
from freedom, as, by mistaking- for it an unbridled license
to which it is diametrically opposed, they nearly always
manage, by their revolutions, to hand themselves over to
seducers, who only make their chains heavier than before.
The Roman people itself, a model for all free peoples,
was wholly incapable of governing itself when it escaped
from the oppression of the Tarquins. Debased by slavery,
and the ignominious tasks which had been imposed upon
it, it was at first no better than a stupid mob, which it was
necessary to control and govern with the greatest wisdom ;
in order that, being accustomed by degrees to breathe
the health-giving air of liberty, minds which had been
enervated or rather brutalised under tyranny, might grad-
ually acquire that severity of morals and spirit of fortitude
which made it at length the people of all most worthy
of respect. I should, then, have sought out for my country
some peaceful and happy Republic, of an antiquity that
lost itself, as it were, in the night of time : which had
experienced only such shocks as served to manifest and
strengthen the courage and patriotism of its subjects ; and
whose citizens, long accustomed to a wise independence,
were not only free, but worthy to be so.

I should have wished to choose myself a country,
diverted, by a fortunate impotence, from the brutal love of
conquest, and secured, by a still more fortunate situation,
from the fear of becoming itself the conquest of other
States : a free city situated between several nations, none
of which should have any interest in attacking it, while
each had an interest in preventing it from being attacked
by the others; in short, a Republic which should have
nothing to tempt the ambition of its neighbours, but might
reasonably depend on their assistance in case of need. It
follows that a republican State so happily situated could
have nothing to fear but from itself; and that, if its
members trained themselves to the use of arms, it would
be rather to keep alive that military ardour and courageous
spirit which are so proper among free-men, and tend to
keep up their taste for liberty, than from the necessity of
providing for their defence.

I should have sought a country, in which the right of

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legislation 'Was vested in all the citizens ; for who can
judge better than they of the conditions under which they
had best dwell together in the same society? Not that I
should have approved of Plebiscita, like those among the
Romans ; in which the rulers in the State, and those most
interested in its preservation, were excluded from the
deliberations on which in many cases its security depended ;
and in which, by the most absurd inconsistency, the
magistrates were deprived of rights which the meanest
citizens enjoyed.

On the contrary, I should have desired that, in order
to prevent self-interested and ill-conceived projects, and
all such dangerous innovations as finally ruined the
Athenians, each man should not be at liberty to propose
new laws at pleasure; but that this right should belong
exclusively to the magistrates; and that even they should
use it with so much caution, the people, on its side, be
so reserved in giving its consent to such laws, and the
promulgation of them be attended with so much solemnity,
that before the constitution could be upset by them, there
might be time enough for all to be convinced, that it is
above all the great antiquity of the laws which makes
them sacred and venerable, that men soon learn to despise
laws which they see daily altered, and that States, by
accustoming themselves to neglect their ancient customs
under the pretext of improvement, often introduce greater
evils than those they endeavour to remove.

I should have particularly avoided, as necessarily ill-
governed, a Republic in which the people, imagining them-
selves in a position to do without magistrates, or at least
to leave them with only a precarious authority, should
imprudently have kept for themselves the administration
of civil affairs and the execution of their own laws. Such
must have been the rude constitution of primitive govern-
ments, directly emerging from a state of nature; and this
was another of the vices that contributed to the downfall
of the Republic of Athens.

But I should have chosen a community in which the
individuals, content with sanctioning their laws, and decid-
ing the most important public affairs in general assembly
and on the motion of the rulers, had established honoured
tribunals, carefully distinguished the several departments.

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The Origin of Inequality i6i

and elected year by year some of the most capable and
upright of their fellow-citizens to administer justice and
govern the State; a community, in short, in which the
virtue of the magistrates thus bearing witness to the
wisdom of the people, each class reciprocally did the other
honour. If in such a case any fatal misunderstandings
arose to disturb the public peace, even these intervals of
blindness and error would bear the marks of moderation,
mutual esteem, and a common respect for the laws;
which are sure signs and pledges of a reconciliation as
lasting as sincere. Such are the advantages, most honour- v
able, magnificent and sovereign lords, which I should
have sought in the country in which I should have chosen
to be born. And if providence had added to all these a
delightful situation, a temperate climate, a fertile soil,
and the most beautiful countryside under Heaven, I should
have desired only, to complete my felicity, the peaceful
enjoyment of all these blessings, in the bosom of this happy
country ; to live at peace in the sweet society of my fellow- i
citizens, and practising towards them, from their own
example, the duties of friendship, humanity, and every
other virtue, to leave behind me the honourable memory
of a good man, and an upright and virtuous patriot.

But, if less fortunate or too late grown wise, I had seen
myself reduced to end an infirm and languishing life in
other climates, vainly regretting that peaceful repose which
I had forfeited in the imprudence of youth, I should at
least have entertained the same feelings in my heart,
though denied the opportunity of making use of them in
my native country. Filled with a tender and disinterested
love for my distant fellow-citizens, I should have addressed
them from my heart, much in the following terms.

"My dear fellow-citizens, or rather my brothers, since
the ties of blood, as well as the laws, unite almost all of
us, it gives me pleasure that I cannot think of you, with-
out thinking, at the same time, of all the blessings you
enjoy, and of which none of you, perhaps, more deeply
feels the value than I who have lost them. The more I
reflect on your civil and political condition, the less can
I conceive that the nature of human affairs could admit
of a better. In all other governments, when there is a
question of ensuring the greatest good of the State,

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nothing gets beyond projects and ideas, or at best bare
possibilities. But as for you, your happiness is complete,
and you have nothing to do but enjoy it; you require
nothing more to be made perfectly happy, than to know
how to be satisfied with being so. Your sovereignty,
acquired or recovered by the sword, and maintained for
two centuries past by your valour and wisdom, is at length
fully and universally acknowlejdged. Your boundaries are
fixed, your rights corifirmed and your repose secured by
honourable treaties. Your constitution is excellent, being
not only dictated by the profoundest wisdom, but guaran-
teed by great and friendly powers. Your State enjoys
perfect tranquillity ; you have neither wars nor conquerors
to fear ; you have no other master than the wise laws you
have yourselves made; and these are administered by up-
right magistrates of your own choosing. You are neither
so wesilthy as to be enervated by effeminacy, and thence
to lose, in the pursuit of frivolous pleasures, the taste for
real happiness and solid virtue ; nor poor enough to require
more assistance from abroad than your own industry is
sufficient to procure you. In the meantime the precious
privilege of liberty, which in great nations is maintained
only by submission to the most exorbitant impositions,
costs you hardly anything for its preservation.

May a Republic, so wisely and happily constituted, last
for ever, for an example to other nations, and for the
felicity of its own citizens I This is the only prayer you
have left to make, the only precaution that remains to be
taken. It depends, for the future, on yourselves alone
(not to make you happy, for your ancestors have saved
you that trouble), but to render that happiness lasting,
by your wisdom in its enjoyment. It is on your constant
union, your obedience to the laws, and your respect for
their ministers, that your preservation depends. If there
remains among you the smallest trace of bitterness or
distrust, hasten to destroy it, as an accursed leaven which
sooner or later must bring misfortune and ruin on the
State. I conjure you all to look into your hearts, and to
hearken to the secret voice of conscience. Is there any
among you who can find, throughout the universe, a more
upright, more enlightened and more honourable body than
your magistracy? Do not all its members set you an

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The Origin of Inequality 163

example of moderation, of simplicity of manners, of respect
for the laws, and of the most sincere harmony? Place,
therefore, without reserve, in such wise superiors, that
salutary confidence which reason ever owes to virtue.
Consider that they are your own choice, that they justify
that choice, and that the honours due to those whom you
have dignified are necessarily yours by reflexion. Not
one of you is so ignorant as not to know that, when the
laws lose theii: force and those who defend them their
authority, security and liberty arc universally impossible.
Why, therefore, should you hesitate to do that cheerfully
and with just confidence which you would all along have
been bound to do by your true interest, your duty and
reason itself?

Let not a culpable and pernicious indifference to the
maintenance of the constitution ever induce you to neg-
lect, in case of need, the prudent advice of the most
enlightened and zealous of your fellow-citizens; but let
equity, moderation and firmness of resolution continue to
regulate all your proceedings, and to exhibit you to the
whole universe as the example of a valiant and modest
people, jealous equally of their honour and of their liberty.
Beware particularly, as the last piece of advice I shall
give you, of sinister constructions and venomous rumours,
the secret motives of which are often more dangerous
than the actions at which they are levelled. A whole
house will be awake and take the first alarm given by
a good and trusty watch-dog, who barks only at the
approach of thieves ; but we hate the importunity of those
noisy curs, which are perpetually disturbing the public
repose, and whose continual ill-timed warnings prevent our
attending to them, when they may perhaps be necessary."

And you, most honourable and magnificent lords, the
worthy and revered magistrates of a free people, permit
me to offer you in particular my duty and homage., If
there is in the world a station capable of conferring honour
on those who fill it, it is undoubtedly that which virtue and
talents combine to bestow, that of which you have made
yourselves worthy, and to which you have been promoted
by your fellow-citizens. Their worth adds a new lustre to
your own ; while, as you have been chosen, by men capable
of governing others, to govern themselves, I cannot but

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hold you as much superior to all other magistrates, as a
free people, and particularly that over which you have
the honour to preside, is by its wisdom and its reason
superior to the populace of other States.

Be it permitted me to cite an example of which there
ought to have existed better records, and one which will
be ever near to my heart. I cannot recall to mind, without
the sweetest emotions, the memory of that virtuous citizen,
to whom I owe my being, and by whom I was often
instructed, in my infancy, in tlie respect which is due to
you. I see him still, living by the work of his hands, and
feeding his soul on the sublimest truths. I see the works
of Tacitus, Plutarch and Grotius, lying before him in the
midst of the tools of his trade. At his side stands his dear
son, receiving, alas with too little profit, the tender instruc-
tions of the best of fathers. But, if the follies of youth
made me for a while forget his wise lessons, I have at
length the happiness to be conscious that, whatever pro-
pensity one may have to vice, it is not easy for an
education, with which love has mingled, to be entirely
thrown away.

Such, my most honourable and magnificent lords, are
the citizens, and even the common inhabitants of the State
which you govern ; such are those intelligent and sensible
men, of whom, under the name of workmen and the people,
it is usual, in othej nations, to have a low and false
opinion. My father, I own with pleasure, was in no way
distinguished among his fellow-citizens. He was only
such as they all are ; and yet, such as he was, there is no
country, in which his acquaintance would not have been
coveted, and cultivated even with advantage by men of
the highest character. It would not become me, nor is it,
thank Heaven, at all necessary for me to remind you of
the regard which such men have a right to expect of their
magistrates, to whom they are equal both by education and
by the rights of nature and birth, and inferior only, by their
own will, by that preference which they owe to your merit,
and, for giving you, can claim some sort of acknowledge-
ment on your side. It is with a lively satisfaction I under-
stand that the greatest candour and condescension attend,
in all your behaviour towards them, on that gravity which
becomes the ministers of the law; and that you so well

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repay them, by your esteem and attention, the respect and
obedience which they owe to you. This conduct is not
only just but prudent ; as it happily tends to obliterate the
memory of many unhappy events, which ought to be buried
in eternal oblivion. It is also so much the more judicious,
as it tends to make this generous and equitable people
find a pleasure in their duty; to make them naturally
love to do you honour, and to cause those who are
the most zealous in the maintenance of their own rights
to be at the same time the most disposed to respect
yours.

It ought not to be thought surprising that the rulers of
a civil society should have the welfare and glory of their
communities at heart : but it is uncommonly fortunate for
the peace of men, when those persons who look upon
themselves as the magistrates, or rather the masters of
a more holy and sublime country, show some love for the
earthly country which maintains them. I am happy in
having it in my power to make so singular an exception in
our favour, and to be able to rank, among its best citizens,
those zealous depositaries of the sacred articles of faith
established by the laws, those venerable shepherds of
souls whose powerful and captivating eloquence are so
much the better calculated to bear to men's hearts the
maxims of the gospel, as they are themselves the first to
put them into practice. All the world knows of the great
success with which the art of the pulpit is cultivated at
Geneva; but men are so used to hearing divines preach
one thing and practise another, that few have a chance
of knowing how far the spirit of Christianity, holiness of
manners, severity towards themselves and indulgence
towards their neighbours, prevail throughout the whole
body of our ministers. It is, perhaps, given to the city
of Geneva alone, to produce the edifying example of so
perfect a union between its clergy and men of letters. It
is in great measure on their wisdom, their known modera-
tion, and their zeal for the prosperity of the State that
I build my hopes of its perpetual tranquillity. At the
same time, I notice, with a pleasure mingled with surprise
and veneration, how much they detest the frightful maxims
of those accursed and barbarous men, of whom history
furnishes us with more than one example; who, in order

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to support the pretended rights of God, that is to say
their own interests, have be^en so much the less greedy of
human blood, as they were more hopeful their own in
particular would be always respected.

I must not forget that precious half of the Republic,
which makes the happiness of the other ; and whose sweet-
ness and prudence preserve its tranquillity and virtue.
Amiable and virtuous daughters of Geneva, it will be
always the lot of your sex to govern ours. Happy are we,
so long as your chaste influence, solely exercised within the
limits of conjugal union, is exerted only for the glory of
the State and the happiness of thie public. It was thus the
female sex commanded at Spirta ; and thus you deserve to
command at Geneva. What man can be such a barbarian
as to resist the voice of honour and reason, coming from
the lips of an affectionate wife? Who would not despise
the vanities of luxury, on beholding the simple and modest
attire which, from the lustre it derives from you, seems
the most favourable to beauty ? It is your task to perpet-
uate, by your insinuating Influence and your innocent and
amiable rule, a respect for the laws of the State, and
harmony among the citizens. It is yours to reunite divided
families by happy marriages; and, above all things, to
correct, by the persuasive sweetness of your lessons and
the modest graces of your conversation, those extrava-
gancies which our young people pick up in other countries,
whence, instead of many useful things by which they might
profit, they bring home hardly anySiing, besides a puerile
air and a ridiculous manner, acquired among loose women,
but an admiration for I know not what so-called grandeur,
and paltry recompenses for being slaves, which can never
come near the real greatness of liberty. Continue, there-
fore, always to be what you are, the chaste guardians of
our morals, and the sweet security for our peace, exerting
on every occasion the privileges of the heart and of nature,
in the interests of duty and virtue.

I flatter myself that I shall never be proved to have been
mistaken, in building on such a foundation my hopes of
the general happiness of the citizens and the glory of the
Republic. It must be confessed, however, that with all
these advantages, it will not shine with that justre, by
which the eyes of most oien are dazzled ; a. puerile and

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The Origin of Inequality 167

fatal taste for which is the most mortal enemy of happiness
and liberty.

Let our dissolute youth seek elsewhere light pleasures
and long repentances. Let our pretenders to taste admire
elsewhere the grandeur of palaces, the beauty of equipages,
sumptuous furniture, the pomp of public entertainments,
and all the refinements of luxury and effeminacy. Geneva
boasts nothing but men; such a sight has nevertheless a
value of its own, and those who have a taste for it are
well worth the admirers of all the rest.

Deign, most honourable, magnificent and sovereign
lords, to receive, and with equal goodness, this respectful
testimony of the interest I take in your common pros-
perity. And, if I have been so unhappy as to be guilty
of any indiscreet transport in this glowing effusion of my
heart, I beseech you to pardon me, and to attribute it to
the tender affection of a true patriot, and to the ardent and
legitimate zeal of a man, who can imagine for himself no
greater felicity than to see you happy.

Most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, I
am, with the most profound respect,

Your most humble and obedient servant and fellow-
citizen.

J. J. Rousseau.

Ckamb^^
June 12, 17S4*

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PREFACE

Of all human sciences the most useful and most imper-
fect appears to me to be that of mankind : and I will
venture to say, the single inscription on the Temple of
Delphi contained a precept more difficult and more import-
ant than is to be found in all the huge volumes that
moralists have ever written. I consider the subject of the
following discourse as one of the most interesting ques-
tions philosophy can propose, and unhappily for us, one of
the most thorny that philosophers can have to solve. For

I how shall we know the source of inequality between men,
if we do not begin by knowing mankind? And how shall
man hope to see himself as nature made him, across all
the changes which the succession of place and time must
have produced in his original constitution? How can he
dis tinguish what is fundament al in his natnrp, t^np th^
changes^jjid^ ad^^^^^^ .and the

a'dvariciSTe^Tia^^ r,ro§Se.,iiaiaLJatJQ.durfd ta ^jnodtfy>4itfl
primitive condhi^^^ Like the statue of Glaucus, which
was so BisKgured by time, seas and tempests, that it
looked more like a wild beast than a god, the human soul,
altered in society by a thousand causes perpetually recur-
ring, by the acquisition of a multitude of truths and erjrors,
by the changes happening to the constitution of the body,
and by the continual jarring of the passions, has, so to
speak, changed in appearance, so as to be hardly recog-
nisable. Instead of a being, acting constantly from fixed
and invariable principles, instead of that celestial and
majestic simplicity, impressed on it by its divine Author,
we find in it only the frightful contrast of passion mis-
taking itself for reason, and of understanding grown
delirious.

It is still more cruel that, as every advance made by the
human species removes it still farOier from its primitive
state, the more discoveries we make, the more we deprive

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The Origin of Inequality 169

ourselves of the means of making the most important of
all. Thus it is, in one sense, by our very study of man,
that the knowledge of him is put out of our power.

It is easy to perceive that it is in these successive
changes in the constitution of man that we must look for
the origin of those differences which now distinguish men,
who, it is allowed, are as equal among themselves as
were the animals of every kind, before physical causes
had introduced those varieties which are i)ow observable
among some of them.

It is, in fact, not to be conceived that these primary
changes, however they may have arisen, could have
altered, all at once and in the same manner, every indi-
vidual of the species. It is natural to think that, while
the condition of some of them grew better or worse, and
they were acquiring various good or bad qualities not
inherent in their nature, there were others who continued
a longer time in their original condition. Such was doubt-
less the first source of the inequality of mankind, which
it is much easier to point out thus in general terms, than
to assign with precision to its actual causes.

Let not my readers therefore imagine that I flatter my-
self with having seen what it appears to me so difficult to
discover. I have here entered upon certain arguments,
and risked some conjectures, less in the hope of solving
the difficulty, than with a view to throwing some light
upon it, and reducing the question to its proper form.
Others may easily proceed farther on the same road, and
yet no one find it very easy to get to the end. fPbr it is
by no means a light undertaking to distinguish properly
between what is original and what is artificial in the actual
nature of man, or to form a true idea of a state which no
longer exists, perhaps never did exist, and probably never
will exist; and of which, it is, nevertheless, necessary to
have true ideas, in order to form a proper judgment of
our present st^^fi^ It requires, indeed, more philosophy
than can be imagined to enable any one to determine
exactly what precautions he ought to take, in order to
make solid observations on this subject; and it appears
to me that a good solution of the following problem would
be not unworthy of the Aristotles and Plinys of the pre-
sent age. What experiments would have to be made.

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to discover the natural man? And how are those experi-
ments to be made in a state of society ?

So far am I from undertaking to solve this problem, that
I think I have sufficiently, considered the subject, to venture
to declare beforehand that our greatest philosophers would
not be too good to direct such experiments, and our most
powerful sovereigns to make them. Such a combination
we have very little reason to expect, especially attended
with the perseverance, or rather succession of intelligence
and good-will necessary on both sides to success.

These investigations, which are so difficult to make,
and have been hitherto so little thought of, are, neverthe-
less, the only means that remain of obviating a multi-
tude of difficulties which deprive us of the knowledge of
the real foundations of human society. It is this ignorance
of the nature of man, which casts so much uncertainty
and obscurity on the true definition of natural right : for,
the idea of right, says Burlamaqui, and more particularly
that of natural right, are ideas manifestly relative to the
nature of man. It is then from this very nature itself, he
goes on, from the constitution and state of man, that we
must deduce the first principles of this science.

We cannot see without surprise amd disgust how little
agreement there is between the different authors who have
treated this great subject. Among the more important
writers there are scarcely two of the same mind about
it. Not to speak of the ancient philosophers, who seem
to have done their best purposely to contradict one another
on the most fundamental principles, the Roman jurists
subjected man and the other animals indiscriminately to
the same natural law, because they considered, under that
name, rather the law which nature imposes on herself
than that which she prescribes to others ; or rather because
of the particular acceptation of the term law among those
jurists; who seem on this occasion to have understood
nothing more by it than the general relations established
by nature between all animated beings, for their common
preservation. The moderns, understanding, by the term
law, merely a rule prescribed to a moral being, that is to
say intelligent, free ajid considered in his relations to
other beings, consequently confine the jurisdiction of
natural law to man, an the only animal endowed with

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The Origin of Inequality 171

reason. But, defining this law, each after his own fashion,
they have established it on such naetaphysical principles,
that there are very few persons among us capable of com-
prehending them, much less of discovering them for them-
selves. So that the definiticms of these learned men, all
differing in everything else, agree only in this, that it is
impossible to comprehend the law of nature, and conse-
quently to obey it, without being a very subtle casuist and
a profound metaphysician. All which is as much as to
say that mankind must have employed, in the establish-
ment of society, a capacity which is acquired only with
great difficulty, and by very few persons, even in a state
of society.

Knowing so little of nature, and agreeing so tU about
the meaning of the word law, it would be difficult for us
to fix on a good definit ion of natural ^a w. Thus all the
definitions we meet with in books, setting: aside their
defect in point of uniformity, have yet another fault, in
that they are derived from many kinds of knowledge,
which men do not possess naturally, and from advantages
of which they can have no idea until they have already
departed from that state. Modern writers begin by
inquiring what rules it would be expedient for men to''
agree on for their common interest, and then give the!
name of natural law to a collection of these rules, without ■
any other proof than the good that would result from
their being universally practised. This is undoubtedly a
simple way of making definitions, and of explaining the
nature of things by almost arbitrary conveniences.

But as long as we are ignorant of the natural man, it
is in vain for us to attempt to determine either the law
originally prescribed to him, or that which is best adapted
to his constitution. All we can know with any certainty
respecting this law is that, if it is to be a law, not only
the wills of those it obliges must be sensible of their .
submission to it; but also, to be natural, it must come |
directly from the voice of nature.

Throwing aside, therefore, all those scientific books,
which teach us only to see men such as they have made
themselves, and contemplating the first and most simple
operations of the human soul, I think I can p erceiveJiuLt
two principles prior to reason, one ot them deeply interest-

III ■■ III 1 -*— — ■«— Aim— — — ■— ^ ^ Iiir.i. ■ lAM t i W M aKn iK an HiVra m m—Ki ^ '''^ " '^f ' ^ i KiW ' •ir-'^' 'v ""^

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exciting.^ nHW?^ rgUgna"^ J^Li^eing^.gQy ..Qtter.S£»siU£
being, and particularly any of our own sgedes^ jjiffct^iain
or 4eatfc \ TFTrn'otft"tte"agreement and combination which
the understanding is in a position to establish between
these two principles, without its being necessary to intro-
duce that of sociability, that all the rules of natural right
appear to me to be derived — rules which our reason is
afterwards obliged to establish on other foundations,
when by its successive developments it has beeh led to
suppress nature itself.

In proceeding thus, we; shall not t)e QbUgc^^ JtP JO^e
man a philosopher be^^^J&AjU* i.^wJ His duties toward
^*^lft!i*Jri are riot dictated to him only bv the later le ssons of
^-^ wisdom ji and, so long as he does not resist the internal
* impulse^f^coni passion, h e^will ne ver hurt an y other man^
nor'ev en any sentient J)eingj except on those lawful occa-
sions on' wHicIi his own preservation is concerned and he is
obliged to give himself the preference. By this method
also we put an end to the time-honoured disputes con-
cerning the participation of animals in natural law : for it
is clear that, being destitute of intelligence and liberty,
they cannot recognise that lawj as they partake, however,
in some measure of our nature, in consequence of the
sensibility with which they are endowed, t_^^y UVfj^^ ^^
partaWp nf natnr^ Hg^^f SO that mankind is subjected to
a"lcrnd**ot obligation even toward the brutes. It appears,
in fact, that if I am bound to do no injury to my fellow-
creatures, this is less because they are rational than
because they are sentient beings : and this quality, being
con[\mon both to men and beasts, ought to entitle the latter
at least to the privilege of not being wantonly ill-treated
by the former.

The very study of the original man, of his real wants,
and the fundamental principles of his duty, is besides the
only proper method we can adopt to obviate^U the diffi-
culties which the origin of moral inequality presents, on
the true foundations of the body politic, on the reciprocal
rights of its members, and on many other similar topics
equally important and obscure.

If we look at human society with a calm and disinter-
ested eye, it seems, at first, to show us only the violence

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The Origin of Inequality 173

of the powerful and the oppression of the weak. The
mind is shocked at the cruelty of the one, or is induced
to lament the blindness of the other ; and as nothing is less
permanent in life than those external relations, which are
more frequently produced by accident than wisdom, and
which are called weakness or power, riches or poverty, all
human institutions seem at first glance to be founded
merely on banks of shifting sand. It is only by taking a
closer look, and removing the dust and sand that surround
the edifice, that we perceive the immovable basis on which
it is raised, and learn to respect its foundations. Now,
without a serious study of man, his natural faculties and
their successive development, we shall never be able to
make these necessary distinctions, or to separate, in the
actual constitution of things, that which is the effect of
the divine will, from the innovations attempted by human
art. The political and moral investigations, therefore, to
which the important question before us leads, are in every
respect useful; while the hypothetical history of govern-
ments affords a lesson equally instructive to mankind.

In considering what we should have become, had we
been left to ourselves, we should learn to bless Him, whose
gracious hand, correcting our institutions, and giving
them an immovable basis, has prevented those disorders
which would otherwise have arisen from them, and caused
our happiness to come from thoste very sources which
seemed likely to involve us in misery.

Quern te deus esse
Jussit, et humand qud parte locatus es in re,
Disce,

Persins, Satire iii, 71.

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A DISSERTATION

ON THE ORIGIN AND FOUNDATION OF THE
INEQUALITY OF MANKIND

It is of man that I have to speak; and the question I
am investigating shows me that it is to men that I must
address myself : for questions of this sort are not asked
by those who are afraid to honour truth. I shall then con-
fidently uphokl the cause of humanity before the wise
men who invite me to do so, and shall not be dissatisfied
if I acquit myself in a manner worthy of my subject and
of my judges.

I conceive that there are two kinds of inequality among
the human species ; one, which I call natural or physical,
because it is established by nature, and consists in a differ-
ence of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of
the mind or of the soul : and another, which may be called
moral or political inequality, because it depends on a kind
of convention, and is established, or at least authorised by
the consent of men. This latter consists of the different
privileges, which some men enjoy to the prejudice of
others ; such as that of being more rich, more honoured,
more powerful or even in a position to exact obedience.

It is useless to ask what is the source of natural in-
equality, because that question is answered by the simple
definition of the word. Again, it is still more useless to
inquire whether there is any essential connection between
the two inequalities ; for this would be only asking, in other
words, whether those who command are necessarily better
than those who obey, and if strength of body or of mind,
wisdom or virtue are always found in particular indi-
viduals, in proportion to their power or wealth : a question
fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in the hearing of their
masters, but highly unbecoming to reasonable and free
men in search of the truth.

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The subject of the present discourse, therefore, is more
precisely this. To mark, in the progress of things, the
moment at which right took the place of violence and
nature became subject to law, and to explain by what ^
sequence of miracles the strong came to submit to serve
the weak, and the people to purchase imaginary repose at
the expense of real felicity.

The philosophers, who have inquired into the founda-
tions of society, have all felt the necessity of going back
to a state of nature; but not one of them has got there.
Some of them have not hesitated to ascribe to man, in such
a state, the idea of just and unjust, without troubling
themselves to show that he must be possessed of such an
idea,' or that it could be of any use to him. Others have
spoken of the natural right of every man to keep what
belongs to him, without explaining what they meant by
belongs. Others again, beginning by giving the strong
authority over the weak, proceeded directly to the birth of
government, without regard to the time that must have
elapsed before the meaning; of the words authority and
government could have existed among men. fEvery one)
of them, in short, constantly dwelling on wants, avidity,!
oppression, desires and pride, has transferred to the state]
of nature ideas which were acquired in society ; so that, in i
speaking of the savage, they described the social m an.j ltj
has not even entered into the heads of most of our wn!ers I
to doubt whether the state of nature ever existed ; but it '
is clear from the Holy Scriptures that the first man, having '
received his understanding and commandments immedi-
ately from God, was not himself in such a state ; and
that, if we give such credit to the writings of Moses as '
every Christian philosopher ought to give, we must deny
that, even before the deluge, men were ever in the pure'
state of nature ; unless, indeed, they fell back into it from
some very extraordinary circumstance; a paradox which
it would be very embarrassing to defend, and quite
impossible to prove.

(Cet us begin then by laying facts aside, as they do not
affect the question. The investigations we may enter into,
in treating this subject, must not be considered as
historical truths, but only as mere conditional and hypo-
thetical reasonings, rather calculated to explain the nature

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of things, than to ascertain their actual origin; just like
the hypotheses which our physicists daily form respecting
the formation of the world. Religion commands us to
believe that, God Himself having taken men out of a state
of nature immediately after the creation, they are unequal
only because it is His will they should be so : but it does
not forbid us to form conjectures based solely on the nature
of man, and the beings around him, concerning what
might have become of the human race, if it had been left
to itself. This then is the question asked me, and that
which I propose to discuss in the following discourse.
As my subject interests mankind in general, I shall
endeavour to make use of a style adapted to all nations,
or rather, forgetting time and place, to attend only to men
to whom I am speaking. I shall suppose myself in the
Lyceum of Athens, repeating the lessons of my masters,
with Plato and Xenocrates for judges, and the whole
human race for audience.

O man, of whatever country you are, and whatever your
opinions may be, behold your history, such as I have
thought to read it, not in books written by your fellow-
creatures, who are liars, but in nature, which never lies.
All that comes from her will be true; nor will you meet
with anything false, unless I have involuntarily put in
something of my own. The times of which I am going to
speak are very remote : how much are you changed
from what you once were ! It is. so to speak, the life o f
your species which I jam ^.ag.J;a,.axit^
which you Have received, whicl)y.Qjjii:.jgrtucajtipii and h^bit3
riTay^avg' IcTepravedjnSut cannot have entirely destroyed.
Th^cre. is, I iadlr -^a g g a t ^hikh -the- individfctai^ -man
would wish to s^^Qgj Jjrgu ars. abput^ to
age tir'WtSicK'you would have liked your whole- jspedes*
to stand stilf.TWscohtented with your present state, for
reasons which ^threaten your unfortunate descendants with
still greater discontent, you will perhaps wish it were in
your power to go back; and this feeling should be a
panegyric on your first ancestors, a criticism of your con-
temporaries, and a terror to the unfortunates who will
come after you.

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The Origin of Inequality 177

THE FIRST PART

Important as it may be, in order to judge rightly of the
natural state of mag / to consider him from his origin, and
to examine him, as it were, in the embryo of his species ;
I shall not follow his organisation through its successive
developments, nor shall I stay to inquire what his animal
system must have been at the beginning, in order to
become at length what it actually is. I shall not ask
whether his long nails were at first, as Aristotle supposes,
only crooked talons; whether his whole body, like that
of a bear, was not covered with hair; or whether the fact
that he walked upon all fours, with his looks directed
toward the earth, confined to a horizon of a few paces,
did not at once point out the nature and limits of his ideas.
On this subject I could form none but vague and almost
imaginary conjectures. Comparative anatomy has as yet
made too little progress, and the observations of naturalists
are too uncertain,, to afford an adequate basis for any solid
reasoning. So that, without having recourse to the super-
natural information given us on this head, or paying any
regard to the changes which must have taken place in the
internal, as well as the external, conformation of man, as
he applied his limbs to new uses, and fed himself on new
kinds of food, I shall suppose his conformation to have
been at all times what it appears to us at this day ; that he
always walked on two legs, made use of his hands as we
do, directed his looks over all nature, and measured with
his eyes the vast expanse of Heaven.

If we strip this being, thus constituted, of all the super-
natural gifts he may have received, and all the artificial
faculties he can have acquired only by a long process ; if
we consider him, in a word, just as he must have come
from the hands of nature, we behold in him an animal
weaker than some, and less agile than others ; but, taking
him all round, the most advantageously organised of any.
I see him satisfying his hunger at the first oak, and slaking
his thirst at the first brook ; finding his bed at the foot of
the tree which afforded him a repast; and, with that, all
his wants supplied.

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While the earth was left to its natural fertility and
covered with immense forests, whose trees were never
mutilated by the axe, it would present on every side both
sustenance and shelter for every species of animal. Men,
dispersed up and down among the rest, would observe and
imitate their industry, and thus attain even to the instinct
of the beasts, with the advantage that, whereas every
species of brutes was confined to one particular instinct,
man, who perhaps has not any one peculiar to himself,
would appropriate them all, and live upon most of those
different foods, which other animals shared among them-
selves; and thus would find his subsistence much more
easily than any of the rest.

Accustomed from their infancy to the inclemencies of
the weather and the rigour of the seasons, inured to
fatigue, and forced, naked and unarmed, to defend them-
selves and their prey from other ferocious animals, or to
escape them by flight, men would acquire a robust and
almost unalterable constitution. The children, bringing
with them into the world the excellent constitution of their
parents, and fortifying it by the very exercises which first
produced it, would thus acquire all the vigour of which
the human frame is capable. Nature in this case treats
them exactly as Sparta treated the children of her citizens :
those who come well formed into the world she renders
strong and robust, and all the rest she destroys ; differing
in this respect from our modern communities, in which
the State, by making children a burden to their parents,
kills them indiscriminately before they are born.

The body of a savage man being the only instrument he
understands, he uses it for various purposes, of which
ours, for want of practice, are incapable : for our industry
deprives us of that force and agility, which necessity
obliges him to acquire. If he had had an axe, would he
have been able with his naked arm to break so large a
branch from a tree? If he had had a sling, would he
have been able to throw a stone with so great velocity?
If he had had a ladder, would he have been so nimble in
climbing a tree? If he had had a horse, would he have
been himself so swift of foot? Give civilised man time to
gather all his machines about him, and he will no doubt
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The Origin of Inequality 179

unequal contest, set them together naked and unarmed,
and you will soon see the advantage of having all our
forces constantly at our disposal, of being always prepared
for every event, and of carrying one's self, as it were,
perpetually whole and entire about one.

Hobbes contends that man is naturally intrepid, and is
intent only upon attacking and fighting. Another illustrious
philosopher holds the opposite, and Cumberland and Puffen-
dorf also affirm that nothing is more timid and fearful than
man in the state of nature ; that he is always in a tremble,
and ready to fly at the least noise or the slightest move-
ment. This may be true of things he does not know ; and
I do not doubt his being terrified by every novelty that
presents itself, when he neither knows the physical good
or evil he may expect from it, nor can make a comparison
between his own strength and the dangers he is about to
encounter. Such circumstances, however, rarely occur in
a state of nature, in which all things proceed in a uniform
manner, and the face of the earth is not subject to those
sudden and continual changes which arise from the
passions and caprices of bodies of men living together..
But savage man, Mving dispersed among other animals,,
and finding himself betimes in a situation to measure his.
strength with theirs, soon comes to compare himself with,
them; and, perceiving that he surpasses them more in
adroitness than they surpass him in strength, learns to be
no longer afraid of them. Set a bear, or a wolf, against
a robust, agile, and resolute savage, as they all are>
armed with stones and a good cudgel, and you will see
that the danger will be at least on both sides, and that,
after a few trials of this kind, wild beasts, which are not
fond of attacking each other, will not be at all ready to
attack man, whom they will have found to be as wild, and
ferocious as themselves. With r^ard to such animals as
have really more strength than man has adroitness, he is
in the same situation as all weaker animals, which not-
withstanding are still able to subsist; except indeed that
he has the advantage that, being equaMy swift of foot,
and finding an almost certain place of refuge in every tree,
he is at liberty to take or leave it at every encounter, and
thus to fight or fly, as he chooses. Add to this that it
does not appear that any animal naturally makes war on

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man, except in case of self-defence or excessive hunger, or
betrays any of those violent antipathies, which seem to
indicate that one species is intended by nature for the food
of another.

This is doubtless why negroes and savages are so little
afraid of the wild beasts they may meet in the woods.
The Caraibs of Venezuela among others live in this respect
in absolute security and without the smallest inconveni-
ence. Though they are almost naked, Francis Correal tells
us, they expose themselves freely in the woods, armed
only with bows and arrows ; but no one has ever heard of
one of them being devoured by wild beasts.

But man has other enemies more formidable, against
which he is not provided with such means of defence :
these are the natural infirmities of infancy, old age, and
illness of every kind, melancholy proofs of our weakness,
of which the two first are common to all animals, and the
last belongs chiefly to man in a state of society. With
regard to infancy, it is observable that the mother, carry-
ing her child always with her, can nurse it with much
greater ease than the females of many other animals, which
are forced to be perpetually ^oing and coming, with great
fatigue, one way to find subsistence, and another to suckle
or feed their young. It is true that if the woman happens
to perish, the infant is in great danger of perishing with
her; but this risk is common to many other species of
animals, whose young take a long time before they are
able to provide for themselves. And if our infancy is
longer than theirs, our lives are longer in proportion; so
that all things are in this respect fairly equal; though
there are other rules to be considered regarding the dura-
tion of the first period of life, and the number of young,
which do not affect the present subject. In old age, when
men are less active and perspire little, the need for food
diminishes with the ability to provide it. As the savage
state also protects them from gout and rheumatism, and
old age is, of all ills, that which human aid can least
alleviate, they cease to be, without others perceiving that
they are no more, and almost without perceiving it
themselves.

With respect to sickness, I shall not repeat the vain
•"*-* false declamations which most healthy people pro-

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The Origin of Inequality i8i

nounce against medicine; but I shall ask if any solid
observations have been made from which it may be justly
concluded that, in the countries where the art of medicine
is most neglected, the mean duration of man's life is less
than in those where it is most cultivated. How indeed can
this be the case, if we bring on ourselves more diseases
than medicine can furnish remedies ? The great inequality
in manner of living, the extreme idleness of some, and the
excessive labour of others, the easiness of exciting and
gratifying our sensual appetites, the too exquisite foods of
the wealthy which overheat and fill them with indigestion,
and, on the other hand, the unwholesome food of the poor,
often, bad as it is, insufficient for their needs, which
induces them, when opportunity offers, to eat voraciously
and overcharge their stomachs; all these, together with
sitting up late, and excesses of every kind, immoderate
transports of every passion, fatigue, mental exhaustion,
the innumerable pains and anxieties inseparable from
every condition of life, by which the mind of man is inces-
santly tormented; these are too fatal proofs that the
greater part of our ills are of our own making, and that
we might have avoided them nearly all by adhering to that
simple, uniform and solitary manner of life which nature
prescribed. If she destined man to be healthy, I venture
to declare that a state of reflection is a state contrary to>J^
nature, and . that a thinki n g man is _a depraved animal.-^ ^^
When we think of the good constitution of the savages, at w*^fc
least of those whom we have not ruined with our spirit- Jl
uous liquors, and reflect that they are troubled with hardly
any disorders, save wounds and old age, we are tempted
to believe that, in following the history of civil society,
we shall be telling also that of human sickness. Such, at
least, was the opinion of Plato, who inferred from certain
remedies prescribed, or approved, by Podalirius and
Machaon at the siege of Troy, that several sicknesses
which these remedies gave rise to in his time, were not
then known to mankind : and Celsus tells us that diet,
which is now so necessary, was first invented by
Hippocrates.

Being subject therefore to so few causes of sickness,
man, in the state of nature, can have no need of remedies,
and still less of physicians : nor is the human race in this

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respect worse off than other animals, and it is easy to
learn from hunters whether they meet with many infirm
animals in the course of the chase. It is certain liiey fre-
quently meet with such as carry the marks of having been
considerably wounded, with many that have had bones
or even limbs broken, yet have been healed without any
Other surgical assistance than that of tim e, or any othe r
regimen lEan that of t heir ordinary life. At the same time
their cures seem iU>l lA) have beeu less perfect, for their
not having been tortured by incisions, poisoned with drugs,
or wasted by fasting. In short, however useful medicine,
properly administered, may be among us, it is certain that,
if the savage, when he is sick and left to himself, has
nothing to hope but from nature, he has, on the other
hand, nothing to fear but from his disease ; which renders
his situation often preferable to our own.

We should beware, therefore, of confounding the savage
man with the men we have daily before our eyes. Nature
treats all the animals left to her care with a predilection
that seems to show how*jealous she is of that right. The
horse, the cat, the bull, and even the ass are generally of
greater stature, and always more robust, and have more
vigour, strength and courage, when they run wild in the
forests than when bred in the stall. By becoming domesti-
cated, they lose half these advantages; and it seems as if
all our care to feed and treat them well serves only to
deprave them. It is thus with man also : as he becomes
sociable and a slave, he grows weak, timid and servile;
his effeminate "way of life totally enervates his strength
and cour£^e. To this it may be added that there is still
a greater difference between savage and civilised man,
than between wild and tame beasts : for men and brutes
having been treated alike by nature, the several conveni-
ences in which men indulge themselves still more than
they do their beasts, are so many additional causes of their
deeper degeneracy.

^t is not therefore so great a misfortune to these orimi-
tjjr^mpn, jior SO prcat an oDStacxc to tneir preservation,
that they go naked, have no dwehings and lack all the
superfluities which we think so necessary. If their skins
arc not covered with hair, they have no need of such cover-
ing in warm climates; and, in cold countries, they soon

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The Origin of Inequality 183

learn to appropriate the skins of the beasts they have over-
come. If they have but two legs to run with, they have
two arms to defend themselves with, and provide for their
wants. Their children are slowly and with difficulty taught
to walk; but their mothers are able to carry them with
ease ; ^ n advantage which other animals lack , as the
mother^ rf pufSli6d, ts fofoed eiffier to abandon her young,
or to regulate her pace by theirs. Unless, in short, we
suppose a singular and fortuitous concurrence of circum-
stances of which I shall speak later, and which would be
unlikely to exist, it is plain in every state of the case, that
the man who first made himi^if clothes or a dwelling was
furnishing himself with things not at all necessary ; for he
had till then done without them, and there is no reason
why he should not have been able to put up in manhood
with the same kind of life as had been his in infancy.

Solitary, indolent, and perpetually accompani^ by
danger, the savage cannot but be fond of sleep ; his sleep
too must be light, like that of the animals, which think but
little and may be said to slumber all the time they do not
think. Self-preservation bei ng his chief and ahnost sole
concern, he must exercise most those faculties which are
most concerned with attack or defence, either for over-
coming his prey, or for preventing him from becoming the
prey of other animals. Orj th** ^tfe ^r hand^ tho^r ^rganc
which are perfected only by softness and sensuality will
remain in a gross and imperfect state, incompatible with
any sort of delicacy ; so that, his senses being divided on
this head, his touch and taste will be extremely coarse,
his sight, hearing and smell exceedingly fine and subtle.
Such in general is the animal condition, and such, accord-
ing to the narratives of travellers, is that of most savage
nations. It is therefore no matter for surprise that the
Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope distinguish ships .at
sea, with the naked eye, at as great a distance as the
Dutch can do with their telescopes ; or that the savages of
America should trace the Spaniards, by their smell, as well
as the best dogs could have done ; or that these barbarous
peoples feel no pain in going naked, or that they use large
quantities of piemento with their food, and drink the
strongest European liquors like water.

Hitherto I have considered merely the physical man ; let

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us now take a view of him on his metaphysical and moral
side.

I see nothing in any animal but an ingenious machine,

to which nature hath given senses to wind itself up, and

to guard itself, to a certain degree, against anything that

J might tend to disorder or destroy it. I perceive exactly

\ the same things in the human machine, with this differ-

\ ence, that in the operations of the brute, nature is the sole

I agent, whereas man has some share in his own operations,

\in his character as a free agent. The one chooses and

refuses by instinct, the other from an act of free-will :

hence the brute cannot deviate from the rule prescribed to

it, even when it would be advantageous for it to do so ;

and, on the contrary, man frequently deviates from such

rules to his own prejudice. Thus a pigeon would be

starved to death by the side of a dish of the choicest meats,

and a cat on a heap of fruit or grain ; though it is certain

that either might find nourishment in the foods which it

thus rejects with disdain, did it think of trying them.

Hence it is that dissolute men run into excesses which

bring on fevers and death ; because the mind depraves the

senses, and the will continues to speak when nature is

silent.

/^ Every animal has ideas, since it has senises ; it even
[combines those ideas in a certain degree; and it is only in
v^egree that man differs, in this respect, from the brute.
Some philosophers have even maintained* that there is a
greater difference between one man and another than
between some men and some beasts. It Js, not^ therefore.
so mu ch the underst ^rif1i"g ^^''^ ^^'^^^titwtftfi t^** 'ipfrific
' differenc e betwe en the.maQ ^nd the brute, as the human
cjualiTy^onree-agency.^ Nature lays her commands on
every^auiiiial, and tlie^rute obeys her voice. Man receives
the same impulsion, but at the same time knows himself
at liberty to acquieste or resist : and it is particularly in
his consciousness of this liberty that the spirituality of his
soul is displayed. For physics may explain, in some
measure, the mechanism of the senses and the formation
of ideas ; but in the power of willing or rather of choosing,
and in the feeling of this power, nothing is to be found
but acts which are purely spiritual and wholly inexplicable
by the laws of mechanism.

However, even if the difficulties attending all these

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The Origin of Inequality 185

questions should still leave room for difference in this
respect between men and brutes, there is anotfaer very ,
specific quality wh ich distinguishes them, and Jwhirh will
admit 6Tno~dispu |er^ ^ is the faculty of self-improvement» j
which, by the help of circumstances, gradually develops
all the rest of our faculties, and is inherent in the species
as in the individual : whereas a brute is, at the end of a
few months, all he will ever be during his whole life, and
his species, at the end of a thousand years, exactly what
it was the first year of that thousand. Why is man alone
liable to grow into a dotard ? Is it not because he returns,
in this, to his primitive state; and that, while the brute,
which has acquired nothing and has therefore nothing to
lose, still retains the force of instinct, man, who loses,
by age or accident, all that his perfectibility had enabled
him to gain, falls by this mieans lower than the brutes
themselves? It would be melancholy, were we forced to
admit that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty
is the source of all human misfortunes; that it is this
which, in time, draws man out of his original state, in
which he would have spent his days insensibly in peace
and innocence; that it is this faculty, which, successively
producing in different ages his discoveries and his errors,
his vices and his virtues, makes him at length a tyrant
both over himself and over nature.^ It would be shocking
to be obliged to regard as a benefactor the man who first
suggested to the Oroonoko Indians the use of the boards
they apply to the temples of their children, which secure
to them some part at least of their imbecility and original
happiness.

Savage man, left by nature solely to the direction of
instinct, or rather indemnified for what he may lack by
faculties capable at first of supplying its place, and after-
wards of raising him much above it, must accordingly
begin with purely animal functions : thus seeing and feel-
ing must be his first condition, whicl) would be common to
him and all other animals. To will, and not to will, to
desire and to fear, must be the first, and almost the only
operations of his soul, till new circumstances occasion new
developments of his faculties.

Whatever moralists may hold, the human understanding

* See Appendix, p, 239.

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is greatly indebted to the passions, which, it is universally
allowed, are also much indebted to the understanding.
It is by the activity of the passions that pur reason is
improved; for we desire knowledge only because we wish
to enjoy ; and it is impossibly to conceive any reason why
a person who has neither fears nor desires should give
himself the trouble of reasoning. The passions, again,
originate in our wdnts, and their progress depends on that
of our knowledge; for we cannot desire or fear anything,
except from the idea we have of it, or from the simple
impulse of nature. Now savage man, being destitute of
every species of intelligence, can have no passions save
those of the latter kind : his desires never go beyond his
physical wants. The only goods he recognises in the
universe are food, a female, and sleep : the only evils he
fears are pain and hunger. I say pain, and not death :
for no animal can know what it is to die ; the knowledge
of death and its terrors being one of the first acquisitions
made by man in departing from an animal state.

It would be easy, were it necessary, to support this
opinion by facts, and to show that, in all the nations of
the world, the progress of the understanding has been
exactly proportionate to the wants which the peoples had
received from nature, or been subjected to by circum-
stances, and in consequence to the passions that induced
them to provide for those necessities. I might instance
the arts, rising up in Egypt and expanding with the
inundation of the Nile. I might follow their progress
into Greece, where they took root afresh, grew up and
towered to the skies, among the rocks and sands of
Attica, without being able to germinate on the fertile
banks of the Eurotas : I might observe that in general,
the people of the North are more industrious than those
of the South, because they cannot get on so well without
being so : as if nature wanted to equalise matters by
giving their understandings the fertility she had refused
to their soil.

But who does not see, without recurring to the uncertain
testimony of history, that everything seems to remove
from savage man both the temptation and the means of
changing his condition? His imagination paints no
pictures; his heart makes no demands on him. His few

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The Origin of Inequality 187

wants are so readily supplied, and he is so far from having
the knowledge which is needful to make him want more,
that he can have neither foresight nor curiosity. The face
of nature becomes indifferent to him as it grows familiar.
He sees in it always the same order, the same successions :
he has not understanding enough to wonder at the great-
est miracles; nor is it in his mind that we can expect to
find that philosophy man needs, if he is to know how
to notice for once what he sees every day. His soul,
which nothing disturbs, is wholly wrapped up in the feel-
ing of its present existence, without any idea of the future,
however near at hand ; while his projects, as limited as his
views, hardly extend to the close of day. Such, even at
present, is the extent of the native Caribean's foresight:
he will improvidently sell you his cotton-bed in the morn-
ing, and come crying in the evening to buy it again, not
having foreseen he would want it again the next night.

The more we reflect on this subject, the greater appears
the distance between pure sensation and the most simple
knowledge : it is impossible indeed to conceive how a man,
by his own powers sdone, without the aid of communication
and the spur of necessity, could have bridged so great a
gap. How many ages may have elapsed before mankind
were in a position to behold any other fire than that of
the heavens. What a multiplicity of chances must have
happened to teach them the commonest uses of that
element ! How often must they have let it out before they
acquired the art of reproducing it? and how often may not
such a secret have died with him who had discovered it?
What shall we say of agriculture, an art which requires
so much labour and foresight, which is so dependent on
others that it is plain it could only be practised in a
society which had at least begun, and which does not serve
so much to draw the means of subsistence from the earth
— for these it would produce of itself — but to compel it
to produce what is most to our taste? But let us suppose
that men had so multiplied that the natural produce of
the earth was no longer sufficient for their support ; a sup-
position, by the way, which would prove such a life to be
very advantageous for the human race; let us suppose
that, without forges or workshops, the instruments of
husbandry had dropped from the sky into the hands of

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savages; that they had overcome their natural aversion
to continual labour ; that they had learnt so much foresight
for their needs ; that they had divined how to cultivate the
earth, to sow grain and plant trees; that they had dis-
covered the arts of grinding corn, and of setting the grape
to ferment — all being thines that must have been taught
them by the gods, since it is not to be conceived how they
could discover them for themselves — ^yet after all this,
what man among them would be so absurd as to take
the trouble of cultivating a field, which might be stripped of
its crop by the first comer, man or beast, that might take
a liking to it; and how should each of them resolve to
pass his life in wearisome labour, when, the more necessary
to him the reward of his labour might be, the surer he
would be of not getting it? In a word, how could such
a situation induce men to cultivate the earth, till it was
regularly parcelled out among them ; that is to say, till the
state of nature had been abolished?

Were we to suppose savage man as trained in the art of
thinking as philosophers make him; were we, like them,
to suppose him a very philosopher capable of investigating
the sublimest truths, and of forming, by highly abstract
chains of reasoning, maxims of reason and justice, deduced
from the love of order in general, or the known will of his
Creator ; in a word, were we to suppose him as intelligent
and enlightened, as he must have been, and is in fact found
to have been, dull and stupid, what advantage Would
accrue to the species, from all such metaphysics, which
could not be communicated by one to another, but must
end with him who made them? What progress could be
made by mankind, while dispersed in die woods among
other animals ? and how far could men improve or mutually
enlighten one another, when, having no fixed habitation,
and no need of one another's assistance, the same persons
hardly met twice in their lives, and perhaps then, without
knowing one another or speaking together?

Let it be considered how many id^as ^we owe to the
use of speech ; how far grammar exercises the understand-
ing and facilitates its operations. Let us reflect on the
inconceivable pains and the infinite space of time that the
first invention of languages must have cost. To these
reflections add what preceded, and then judge Ijow many

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The Origin of Inequality 189

thousand ages must have elapsed in the successive develop-
ment in the human mind of those operations of which
it is capable.

I shall here take the liberty for a moment, of considering
the difficulties of the origin of languages, on which subject
I might content myself with a simple repetition of the Abb^
Condillac's investigations, as they fully confirm my system,
and perhaps even first suggested it. But it is plain, from
the manner in which this philosopher solves the difficulties
he himself raises, concerning the origin of arbitrary signs,
that ^ aQgiim^«^ W^P^t I^^ti ^stiouy viz. that a kind of society i
must alry ffi^Y hfl'"^ ^-«^;c»^/l or»]^«^ ^^^ jif^ iin;(i im||i|-..£-|
irn^iiapr<>. \ AVhilp I refer, therefore, to bis observations
on tills head, I think it right to give my own, in order
to exhibit the same difficulties in a light adapted to my
subject. The first which presents itself is to conceive how
language can have become necessary; for as there was
no communication among men and no need for any, we
can neither conceive the necessity of this invention, nor the
possibility of it, if it was not somehow indispensable. I
might affirm, with many others, that languages arose in
the domestic intercourse between parents and their
children. But this expedient would not obviate the diffi-
culty, and would besides involve the blunder made by
those who, in reasoning on the state of nature, always
import into it ideas gathered in a state of society. Thus
they constantly consider families as living together under
one roof, and the individuals of each as observing among
themselves a union as intimate and permanent as that
which exists among us, where so many common interests
unite them : whereas, in this primitive state, men had
neither houses, nor huts, nor any kind of property what-
ever ; every one lived where he could, seldon) for more than
a single night; the sexes united without design, as acci-
dent, opportunity or inclination brought them together, nor
had they any great need of words to communicate their
designs to each other; and they parted with the same
indifference. The mother gave suck to her children at
first for her own sake; and afterwards, when habit had
made them dear, for theirs : but as soon as they were
strong enough to go in search of their own food, they
forsook her of their own accord ; and, as they had hardly

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any other method of not losing one another than that of
remaining continually within sight, they soon became quite
incapable of recognising one another when they happened
to meet again. It is farther to be observed that the child,
having all his wants to explain, and of course more to say
to his mother than the mother could have to say to him,
must have borne the brunt of the tas-k of invention, and
the language he used would be of his own device, so that
the number of languages would be equal to that of the
individuals speaking them, and the variety would be in-
creased by the vagabond and roving life they led, which
would not give time for any idiom to become constant.
For to say that the mother dictated to her child the words
he was to use in asking her for one thing or another, is
an explanation of how languages already formed are
taught, but by no means explains how languages were
originally formed.

We will suppose, however, that this first difficulty is
obviated. Let us for a moment then take ourselves as
being on this side of the vast space which must lie be-
tween a pure state of nature and that in which languages
had become necessary, and, admitting their necessity, let
us inquire how they could first be established. Here we
have a new and worse difficulty to grapple with; for if
men need speech to learn to think, the^ must have stood
in much greater need of the art of thinking, to be able
to invent that of speaking. And though we might con-
ceive how the articulate sounds of the voice came to be
taken as the conventional interpreters of our ideas, it
would still remain for us to inquire what could have been
the interpreters of this convention for those ideas, which,
answering to no sensible objects, could not be indicated
either by gesture or voice; so that we can hardly form
any tolerable conjectures about the origin of this art
of communicating our thoughts and establishing a corre-
spondence between minds : an art so sublime, that far
distant as it is from its origin, philosophers still behold it
at such an immeasurable distance from perfection, that
there is none rash enough to affirm it will ever reach it,
even though the revolutions time necessarily produces
were suspended in its favour, though prejudice should be
banished from our academies or condemned to silence, and

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The Origin of Inequality 191

those learned societies should devote themselves uninter-
ruptedly for whole ages to this thorny question.

The first language of mankind, the most universal and
vivid, in a word the only language man needed, before he
had occasion to exert his eloquence to persuade assembled
multitudes, was the simple cry of nature. But as this was
excited only by a soft of instinct on urgent occasions, to
implore assistance in case of danger, or relief in case of
suffering, it could be of little use in the ordinary course
of life, in which more moderate feelings prevail. When
the ideas of men began to expand and multiply, and closer
communication took place among them, they strove to
invent more numerous signs and a more copious language.
They multiplied the inflections of the voice, and added
gestures, which are in their own nature more expressive,
and depend less for their meaning on a prior determina-
tion. Visible and movable objects were therefore
expressed by gestures, and audible ones by imitative
sounds : but, as hardly anything can be indicated by
gestures, except objects actually present or easily
described, and visible actions; as they are not universally
useful — for darkness or the interposition of a material
object destroys their efficacy — and as besides they rather
request than secure our attention ; men at length bethought
themselves of substituting for them the articulate sounds
of the voice, which, without bearing the same relation to
any particular ideas, are better calculated to express them
all, as conventional signs. Such an institution could only
be made by common consent, and must have been effected
in a manner not very easy for men whose gross organs had
not been accustomed to any such exercise. It is also in
itself still more difficult to conceive, since such a common
agreement must have had motives, and speech seems to
have been highly necessary to establish the use of it.

It is reasonable to suppose that the words first made use
of by mankind had a much more extensive signification than
those used in languages already formed, and that ignorant
as they were of the division of discourse into its constituent
parts, they at first gave every single word the sense of a
whole proposition. When they began to distinguish sub-
ject and attribute, and noun and verb, which was itself no
common effort of genius, substantives were at first only

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192 A Discourse on

so many proper names ; the present infinitive was the only
tense of verbs; and the very idea of adjectives must have
been developed with great difficulty; for every adjective
is an abstract idea, and abstractions are painful and
unnatural operations.

Every object at first received a particular name without
regard to genus or species, which these primitive origin-
ators were not in a position to distinguish ; every individual
presented itself to their minds in isolation, as they are in
the picture of nature. If one oak was called A, another
was called B ; for the primitive idea of two things is that
they are not the same, and it often takes a long time for
what they have in common to be seen : so that, the
narrower the limits of their knowledge of things, the more
copious their dictionary must have been. The difficulty of
using such a vocabulary could not be easily removed ; for, to
arrange beings under common and generic denominations,
it became necessary to know their distinguishing proper-
ties : the need arose for observation and definition, that is
to say, for natural history and metaphysics of a far more
developed kind than men can at that time have possessed.

Add to this, that general ideas cannot be introduced into
the mind without the assistance of words, nor can the
understanding seize them except by means of propositions.
This is one of the reasons why animals cannot form such
ideas, or ever acquire that capacity for self-improvement
which depends on them. When a monkey goes from one
nut to another, are we to conceive that he entertains any
general idea of that kind of fruit, and compares its arche-
type with the two individual nuts? Assuredly he does
not; but the sight of one of these nuts recalls to his
memory the sensations which he received from the other,
and his eyes, being modified after a certain manner, give
information to the palate of the modification it is about
to receive. Every general idea is purely intellectual; if
the imagination meddles with it ever so little, the idea
immediately becomes particular. If you endeavour to
trace in your mind the image of a tree in general, you
never attain to your end. In spite of all you can do,
you will have to see it as great or little, bare or leafy,
light or dark, and were you capable of seeing nothing in
it but what is common to all trees, it would no longer be

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The Origin of Inequality 193

i»L

like a tree at all. Purely abstract beings are perceiv-
able in the same manner, or are only conceivable by the
help of language. The definition of a triangle alone gives
you a true idea of it : the moment you imagine a triangle
in your mind, it is some particular triangle and not
another, and you cannot avoid giving it sensible lines and
a coloured area. We must then make use of propositions
and of language in order to form general ideas. For no
sooner does the imagination cease to operate than the
understanding proceeds only by the help of words. If
then the first inventors of speech could give names only
to ideas they already had, it follows that the first sub-
stantives could be nothing more than proper names.

But when our new grammarians, by means of which I
have no conception, began to extend their ideas and
generalise their terms, the ignorance of the inventors must
have confined this method within very narrow limits ; and,
as they had at first gone too far in multiplying the names
of individuals, from ignorance of their genus and species,
they made afterwards too few of these, from not having
considered beings in all their specific differences. It would
incjeed have needed more knowledge and experience than
they could have, and more pains and inquiry than they
would have bestowed, to carry these distinctions to their
proper length. If, even to-day, we are continually dis-
covering new species, which have hitherto escaped
observation, let us reflect how many of them must have
escaped men who judged things merely from their first
appearance ! It is superfluous to add that the primitive
classes and the most general notions must necessarily
have escaped their notice also. How, for instance, could
they have understood or thought of the words matter,
spirit, substance, mode, figure, motion, when even our
philosophers, who have so long been making use of them,
have themselves the greatest diflficulty in understanding
them ; and when, the ideas attached to them being purely
metaphysical, there are no models of them to be found
in nature?

But I stop at this point, and ask my judges to suspend

their reading a while, to consider, after the invention of

physical substantives, which is the easiest part of language

to invent, that there is still a great way to go, before the

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thoughts of men will have found perfect expression and
constant form, such as would answer the purposes of
public speaking, and produce their effect on society. I
beg of them to consider how much time must have been
spent, and how much knowledge needed, to find out
numbers, abstract terms, aorists and all the tenses of
verbs, particles, syntax, the method of connecting pro-
positions, the forms of reasoning, and all the logic of
speech. For myself, I am so aghast at the increasing
difficulties which present themselves, and so well con-
vinced of the almost demonstrable impossibility that
languages should owe their original institution to merely
human means, that I leave, to any one who will undertake
it, the discussion of the difficult problem, which was most
necessary, the existence of society to the invention of
language, or the invention of language to the establish-
ment of society. But be the origin of language and
society what they may, it may be at least inferred, from
the little care which nature has taken to unite mankind
by mutual wants, and to facilitate the use of speech, that
she has contributed little to make them sociable, and has
put little of her own into all they have done to create such
bonds of union. It is in fact impossible to conceive why,
in a state of nature, one man should stand more in need
of the assistance of another, than a monkey or a wolf of
the assistance of another of its kind : or, granting that
he did, what motives could induce that other to assist him ;
or, even then, by what means they could agree about the
conditions. I know it is incessantly repeated that man
would in such a state have been the most miserable of
creatures; and indeed, if it be true, as I think I have
proved, that he must have lived many ages, before he
could have either desire or an opportunity of emerging
from it, this would only be an accusation against nature,
and not against the being which she had thus unhappily
constituted. But as I understand the word miserahle, it
either has no meaning at all, or else signifies only a pain-
ful privation of something, or a state of suffering either in
body or soul. I should be ^ad to have explained to me,
what kind of misery a free being, whose heart is at ease
and whose body is in health, can possibly suffer. I would
ask also, whether a social or a natural life is most likely

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The Origin of Inequality 195)

to become insupportable to those who enjoy it. We see
around us hardly a creature in civil society, who does not
lament his existence : we even see many deprive them-
selves of as much of it as they can, and laws human and
divine together can hardly put a stop to the disorder. I
ask, if it was ever known that a savage took it into his
head, when at liberty, to complain of life or to make
away with himself. Let us therefore judge, with less
vanity, on which side the real misery is found. On the
other hand, nothing could be more unhappy than savage
man, dazzled by science, tormented by his passions, and
reasoning about a state different from his own. It appears
that Providence most wisely determined that the faculties,
which he potentially possessed, should develop themselves
only as occasion offered to exercise them, in order that
they might not be superfluous or perplexing to him, by
appearing before their time, nor slow and useless when
the need for them arose. In instinct alone, he had all he
required for living in the state of nature; and with a
developed understanding he has only just enough to sup-
port life in society.

It appears, at first view, thgjtj^iejn m a state^^^o^^^ n.aturfi#„
having; no moral relations or determinate obligations onj^
witF'anolMi7"c6^a'13OT'*Be"^ bad, virtuous

or vicious^ unlS'STwe^faTce these terms in a physical sense,
and call, in an individual, those qualities vices which may
be injurious to his preservation, and those virtues which
contribute to it ; ^n which case, he would have to be
accounted most virtuous, who put least check on the
pure impulses of nature. But without deviating from the
ordinary sense of the words, it will be proper to suspend |
the judgment we might be led to form on such a state,
and be on our guard against our prejudices, till we have
weighed the matter in the scales of impartiality, and seen
whether virtues or vices preponderate among civilised
men; and whether their virtues do them more good than
their vices do harm ; till we have discovered, whether the
progress of the sciences sufficiently indemnifies them for
the mischiefs they do one another, in proportion as they are
better informed of the good they ought to do ; or whether
they would not be, on the whole, in a much happier con-
dition if they had nothing to fear or to hope from any one,

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than as they are, subjected to universal dependence, and
obliged to take everything from those who engage to give
them nothing in return.

\ Above all, let us not conclude, with Hobbes, that be-
cause man has no idea of goodness, he must be naturally
wicked ; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue ;
that he always refuses to do his fellow-creatures services
which he does not think they have a right to demand ; or
that by virtue of the right he truly claims to everything-
he needs, he foolishly imagines himself the sole proprietor
of the whole universe. Hobbes had seen clearly the
defects of all the modern definitions of natural right : but
the consequences which he deduces from his own show
that he understands it in an equally false sense. In
reasoning on the principles he lays down, he ought to have
said that the state of nature, being that in which the care
for our. own preservation is the least prejudicial to that
of others, was consequently the best calculated to promote
peace, and the most suitable for mankind. He does say
the exact opposite, in consequence of having improperly
admitted, as a part of savage man's care for self-pre-
servation, the gratification of a multitude of passions
which are the work of society, and have made laws neces-
sary. A bad man, he says, is a robust child. But it
remains to be proved whether man in a state of nature is
this robust child : and, should we grant that he is, what
would he infer? Why truly, that if this man, when robust
and strong, were dependent on others as he is when feeble,
there is no extravagance he would not be guilty of; that
he would beat his mother when she was too slow in giving
him her breast ; that he would strangle one of his younger
brothers, if he should be troublesome to him, or bite the
arm of another, if he put him to any inconvenience. But
that man in the state of nature is both strong and de-
pendent involves two contrary suppositions. Man is weak
when he is dependent, and is his own master before he
comes to be strong. Hobbes did not reflect that the same
cause, which prevents a savage from making use of his
reason, as our jurists hold, prevents him also from abusing
his faculties, as Hobbes himself allows : so that it may
be justly said that savages are not bad merely because
they do not know What it is to be good : for it is neither

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The Origin of Inequality i(§2>

the development of the understanding nor the restraint of
law that hinders them from doing- ill ; but the peacefulness
of their passions, and their ignorance of vice : tanto plus in
illis proficit vitiorum ignoratio, quam in his cognitio
virtutis.^ There is another principle which has escaped
Hobbes; which, having been bestowed on mankind, to
moderate, on certain occasions, the impetuosity of egoism,
or, before its birth, the desirQ of self-preservation, tempers
the ardour with which he pursues his own welfare, by an
innate repugnance at seeing a fellow-creature suffer.^ l^
think I need not fear contradiction in hol^infr ^an »r> k^

possessed oi lli^ U "^Y IIH1""' "'"llri which m uld not be

H^ni#>H >iim Jijy^fhA l|ir%cf yjolgnt de ^ractor Qt human virtue. I
T'W^'gfilrinrhf rnmpirni f- i ii-pn-jtinn -nit

able to creatures so weak and subject to so many evils as
we certainly are : by so much the more universal and useful
to mankind, as it comes before any kind of reflection ; and
at the same time so__natumj,^_that. the_yery briites them-
selves sometimes g:^ive^ evident proofs jpJL.it^ Not to
mention the tenderness of mothers for their offspring and
the perils they encounter to save them from danger, it is

^ [Justin. Hist, ii, 2. So much more does the ig^norance of vice profit
the one sort than the knowledge of virtue the other.]

■ Egoism must not be confused with self-respect : for they differ both in
themselves and in their effects. Self-respect is a natural feeling which
leads every animal to look to its own preservation, and which, guided in
man by reason and modified by compassion, creates humanity and virtue.
Egoism is a purely relative and &ctitious feeling, whicH arises in the state
OI society, leads each individual to make more of himself than of any other,
causes all the mutual damage men inflict one on another, and is the real
source of the " sense of honour." This being understood, I maintain that,
in our primitive condition, in the true state of nature, egoism did not exist ;
for as each man regarded himself as the only observer of his actions, the
only being in the universe who took any interest in him, and the sole judge
of his deserts, no feeling arising from comparisons he could not be led to
make could take root in his soul ; and for the same reason, he could know
neither hatred nor the desire for revenge, since these passions can spring
only from a sense of injury : and as it is the contempt or the intention to
hurt, and not the harm done, which constitutes the injury, men who neither
valued nor compared themselves could do one another much violence,
when it suited them, without feeling any sense of injury. In a word, each
man, regarding his fellows almost as he regarded animals of different
species, might seize the prey of a weaker or yield up his own to a stronger,
and yet consider these acts of violence as mere natural occurrences, without
the slightest emotion of insolence or despite, or any other feeling than the
joy or grief of success or failure.

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A Discourse on

well known that horses show a reluctance to trample on
living bodies. One animal never passes by the dead
body of another of its species : there are even some which
give their fellows a sort of burial; while the mournful
lowings of the cattle when they enter the slaughter-house
show the impressions made on them by the horrible
spectacle which meets them. We find, with pleasure, the
author of the Fable of the Bees obliged to own that man
is a compassionate and sensible being, and laying aside
his cold subtlety of style, in the example he gives, to
present us with the pathetic description of a man who,
from a place of confinement, is compelled to behold a wild
beast tear a child from the arms of its mother, grinding its
tender limbs with its murderous teeth, and tearing its
palpitating entrails with its claws. What horrid agita-
tion must not the eye-witness of such a scene experience,
although he would not be personally concerned ! What
anxiety would he not suffer at not being able to give any
assistance to the fainting mother and the dying infant !

Such is the pure emotion of nature, prior to all kinds j
of reflection I Such is the force of natural compassion,
which the greatest depravity of morals has as yet hardly ^
been able to destroy ! for we daily find at our theatres
men affected, nay shedding tears at 'the sufferings of a I
wretch who, were he in the tyrant's place, would probably
even add to the torments of his enemies; like the blood-
thirsty Sulla, who was so sensitive to ills he had not
caused, or that Alexander of Pheros who did not dare to
go and see any tragedy acted, for fear of being seen
weeping with Andromache and Priam, though he could
listen without emotion to the cries of all the citizens who
were daily strangled at his command.

Mollissima corda
Humane generi dare se natura fatctur^ ;

Qua lacrimas dedit,

Juvenal, Satire xv, 151.*

Mandeville well knew that, in spite of all their morality,
men would have never been better than monsters, had
not nature bestowed on them a sense of compassion, to aid

^ [Nature avows she gave the human race the softest hearts, who gave <
them tears.]

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The Origin of Inequality g9

their reason : but he did not see that from this quality
alone flow all those social virtues, of which he denied man
the possession. But what is generosity, clemency or
humanity but compassion applied to the weak, to the
guilty, or to mankind in general? Even benevolence and
friendship are, if we judge rightly, only the effects of
compassion, constantly set upon a particular object : for
how is it different to wish that another person may not
su£Fer pain and uneasiness and to wish him happy ? Were
it even true that pity is no more than a feeling, which
puts us in the place of the sufferer, a feeling, obscure yet
lively in a savage, developed yet feeble in civilised man;
this truth would have no other consequence than to con-
firm my argument. Compassion must, in fact, be the
stronger, the more the animal beholding any kind of
distress identifies himself with the animal that suffers.
Now, it is plain that such identification must have been
much more perfect in a state of nature than it is in a state
of reason. It is reason that engenders self-respect, and
reflection that confirms it: it is reason which turns man's
mind back upon itself, and divides him from every-
thing that could disturb or afiHict him. It is philosophy
that isolates him, and bids him say, at sight of the mis-
fortunes of others: "Perish if you will, I am secure."
Nothing but such general evils as threaten the whole
community can disturb the tranquil sleep of the philo-
sopher, or tear him from his bed. A murder may with
impunity be committed under his window; he has only
to put his hands to his ears and argue a little with him-
self, to prevent nature, which is shocked within him, from
identifying itself with the unfortunate sufferer. Uncivil-
ised man has not this admirable talent; and for want of
reason and wisdom, is always foolishly ready to obey the
first promptings of humanity. It is the populace that
flocks together at riots and street-brawls, while the wise
man prudently makes off. It is the mob and the market-
women, who part the combatants, and hinder gentle-folks
from cutting one another's throats.

It is then certain that compassion is a natural feeling\
which, by moderating the violence of love of self in each!
individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole)
species. It is this compassion that hurries us without

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A Discourse on

/^ reflection to the relief of those who are in distress : it is
j this which in a state of nature supplies the place of laws,
\ morals and virtues, with the advantage that none are
1 tempted to disobey its gentle voice : it is this which will
' always prevent a sturdy savage from robbing a weak
\ child or a feeble old man of the sustenance they may have
\ with pain and difficulty acquired, if he sees a possibility
of providing for himself by other means : it is this which,
instead of inculcating that sublime maxim of rational
justice. Do to others as you woidd have them do unto you,
inspires all men with that other maxim of natural good-
ness, much less perfect indeed, but perhaps more useful ;
Do srooiL to yourself with as little evil as possible to others.
In a word, it is rather in this natural feeling than in
any subtle arguments that we must look for the cause of
that repugnance, which every man would experience in
\^dojng evil, even independently of the maxims of education.
Although it might belong to Socrates and other minds of
the like craft to acquire virtue by reason, the human race
would long since have ceased to be, had its preservation
depended only on the reasonings of the individuals com-
posing it.

With passions so little active, and so good a curb, men,
being rather wild than wicked, and more intent to guard
themselves against the mischief that might be done them,
than to do mischief to others, were by no means subject
to very perilous dissensions. They maintained no kind
of intercourse with one another, and were consequently
strangers to vanity, deference, esteem and contempt ; they
had not the least idea of meum and tuum, and no true
conception of justice; they looked upon every violence to
which they were subjected, rather as an injury that might
easily be repaired than as a crime that ought to be
punished; and they never thought of taking revenge,
unless perhaps mechanically and on the spot, as a dog will
sometimes bite the stone which is thrown at him. Their
quarrels therefore would seldom have very bloody conse-
quences; for the subject of them would be merely the
question of subsistence. But I am aware of one greater
danger, which remains to be noticed.

Of the passions that stir the heart of man, there is one
which makes the sexes necessary to each other, and is

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extremely ardent and impetuous; a terrible passion that
braves danger, surmounts all obstacles, and in its trans-
ports seems calculated to bring destruction on the human
race which it is really destined to preserve. What must
become of men who are left to this brutal and boundless
rage, without modesty, without shame, and daily uphold-
ing their amours at the price of their blood?

It must, in the first place, be allowed that, the more
violent the passions are, the more are laws necessary to
keep them under restraint. But, setting aside the inade-
quacy of laws to effect this purpose, which is evident from
the crimes and disorders to which these passions daily
give rise among us, we should do well to inquire if these
evils did not spring up with the laws themselves; for in
this case, even if the laws were capable of repressing such
evils, it is the least that could be expected from them, that
they should check a mischief which would not have arisen
without them.

Let us begin by distinguishing between the physical and
moral ingredients in the feeling of love. The physical part
of love is that general desire which urges the sexes to
union with each other. The nioral part is that which
determines and fixes this desire exclusively upon one
particular object ; or at least gives it a greater degree of
energy toward the object thus preferred. It is easy to see
that the moral part of love is a factitious feeling, born of
social usage, and enhanced by the women with much care
and cleverness, to establish their empire, and put in power
the sex which ought to obey. This feeling, being founded
on certain ideas of beauty and merit which a savage is not'
in a position to acquire, and on comparisons which he is
incapable of making, must be for him almost non-existent ;
for, as his mind cannot form abstract ideas of proportion
and regularity, so his heart is not susceptible of the feel-
ings of love and admiration, which are even insensibly
produced by the application of these ideas. He follows
solely the character nature has implanted in him, and not
tastes which he could never have acquired; so that every
woman equally answers his purpose.

Men in a state of nature being confined merely to what
is physical in love, and fortunate enough to be ignorant
of those excellences, which whet the appetite while they

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increase the difficulty of gratifying it, must be subject to
fewer and less violent fits of passion, and consequently fall
into fewer and less violent disputes. The imagination,
which causes such ravages among us, never speaks to the
heart of savages, who quietly await the impulses of nature,
yield to them involuntarily, with more pleasure than
ardour, and, their wants once satisfied, lose the desire.
It is therefore incontestable that love, as well as all other
passions, must have acquired in society that glowing
impetuosity, which makes it so often fatal to mankind.
And it is the more absurd to represent savages as con-
tinually cutting one another's throats to indulge their
brutality, because this opinion is directly contrary to
experience; the Caribeans, who have as yet least of all
deviated from the state of nature, being in fact the most
peaceable of people in their amours, and the least subject
to jealousy, though they live in a hot climate which seems
always to inflame the passions.

With regard to the inferences that might be drawn, in
the case of several species of animals, the males of which
fill our poultry-yards with blood and slaughter, or in
spring make the forests resound with their quarrels over
their females; we must begin by excluding all those
species, in which nature has plainly established, in the
comparative power of the sexes, relations different from
those which exist among us : thus we can base no con-
clusion about men on the habits of fighting cocks. In
those species where the proportion is better observed, these
battles must be entirely due to the scarcity of females in
comparison with males; or, what amounts to the same
thing, to the intervals during which the female constantly
refuses the advances of the male : for if each female admits
the male but during two months in the year, it is the same
as if the number of females were five-sixths less. Now,
neither of these two cases is applicable to the human
species, in which the number of females usually exceeds
that of males, and among whom it has never been observed,
even among savages, that the females have, like those of
other animals, their stated times of passion and indiffer-
ence. Moreover, in several of these species, the individuals
all take fire at once, and there comes a fearful moment of
universal passion, tumult and disorder among them; a

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The Origin of Inequality 203

scene which is never beheld in the human species, whose
love is not thus seasonal. We must not then conclude
from the combats of such animals for the enjoyment of the
females, that the case would be the same with mankind
in a state of nature : and, even if we drew such a con-
clusion, we see that such contests do not exterminate
other kinds of animals, and we have no reason to think
they would be more fatal to ours. It is indeed clear that
they would do still less mischief than is the case in a state
of society; especially in those countries in which, morals
being still held in some repute, the jealousy of lovers and
the vengeance of husbands are the daily cause of duels,
murders, and even worse crimes; where the obligation of
eternal fidelity only occasions adultery, and the very laws
of honour and continence necessarily increase debauchery
and lead to the multiplication of abortions.

LLet us conclude then that man in a state of nature, A
andering up and down the forests, without industry, ;
^thout speech, and without home, an equal stranger toi
war and to all ties, neither standing in need of his fellow-'
creatures nor having any desire to hurt them, and perhaps
even not distinguishing them one from another; let us
conclude that, being self-sufficient and subject to so •few
passions, he could have no feelings or knowledge but
such as befitted his situation ; that he felt only his actual
necessities, and disregarded everything he did not think
himself immediately concerned to notice, and that his
understanding made no greater progress than his vanity.
If by accident he made any discovery, he was the less
able to communicate it to others, as he did not know even
his own children. Every art would necessarily perish with
its inventor, where there was no kind of education among
men, and generations succeeded generations without the
least advance; when, all setting out from the same point,
centuries must have elapsed in the barbarism of the first
ages; wh^n the race was already old, and man remained
a child.

If I have expatiated at such length on this supposed
primitive state, it is because I had so many ancient errors
and inveterate prejudices to eradicate, and therefore
thought it incumbent on me to dig down to their very
root, and show, by means of a true picture of the state of

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nature, how far even the natural inequalities of mankind
are from having that reality and influence which modern
writers suppose.

It is in fact easy to see that many of the differences
which distinguish men are merely the effect of habit and
the different methods of life men adopt in society. Thus
a robust or delicate constitution, and the strength or
weakness attaching to it, are more frequently the effects
of a hardy or effeminate method of education than of the
original endowment of the body. It is the same with the
powers of the mind ; for education not only makes a differ-
ence between such as are cultured and such as are not, but
even increases the differences which exist among the
former, in proportion to their respective degrees of
culture : as the distance between a giant and a dwarf on
the same road increases with every step they take. If
we compare the prodigious diversity, which obtains in
the education and manner of life of the various orders of
men in the state of society, with the uniformity and
simplicity of animal and savage life, in which every one
lives on the same kind of food and in exactly the same
manner, and does exactly the same things, it is easy to
conceive how much less the difference between man and
man must be in a state of nature than in a state of society,
and how greatly the natural inequality of mankind must be
increased by the inequalities of social institutions.

But even if nature really affected, in the distribution of
her gifts, that partiality which is imputed to her, what
advantage would the greatest of her favourites derive from
it, to the detriment of others, in a state that admits of
hardly any kind of relation between them? Where there
is no love, of what advantage is beauty? Of what use is
wit to those who do not converse, or cunning to those who
have no business with others? I hear it constantly
repeated that, in such a state, the strong would oppress
the weak; but what is here meant by oppression? Some,
it is said, would violently domineer over others, who would
groan under a servile submission to their caprices. This
indeed is exactly what I observe to be the case among us ;
but I do not see how it can be inferred of men in a state
of nature, who could not easily be brought to conceive
what we mean by dominion and servitude. One man, it is

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The Origin of Inequality 205

true, might seize the fruits which another had gathered,
the game he had killed, or the cave he had chosen for
shelter ; but how would he ever be able to exact obedience,
and what ties of dependence could there be among men
without possessions? If, for instance, I am driven from
one tree, I can go to the next ; if I am disturbed in one
place, what hinders me from going to another? Again,
should I happen to meet with a man so much stronger
than myself, and at the same time so depraved, so indolent,
and so barbarous, as to compel me to provide for his sus-
tenance while he himself remains idle; he must take care
not to have his eyes off me for a single moment ; he must
bind me fast before he goes to sleep, or I shall certainly
either knock him on the head or make my escape. That
is to say, he must in such a case voluntarily expose himself
to much greater trouble than he seeks to avoid, or can give
me. After all this, let him be off his guard ever so little ;
let him but turn his head aside at any sudden noise, and
I shall be instantly twenty paces off, lost in the forest,
and, my fetters burst asunder, he would never see me
again.

Without my expatiating thus uselessly on these details,!
every one must see that as the bonds of servitude are!
formed merely by the mutual dependence of men on one!
another and the reciprocal needs that unite them, it is|
impossible to make any man a slave, unless he be first
reduced to a situation in which he cannot do without the
help of others : and, since such a situation does not exist
in a state of nature, every one is there his own master,
and the law of the strongest is of no effect. •

Having proved that the inequality of mankind is hardly
felt, and that its influence is next to nothing in a state of
nature, I must next show its origin and trace its progress
in the successive developments of the human mind. Hav-
ing shown that human perfectibility, the social virtues,
and the other faculties which natural man potentially
possessed, could never develop of themselves, but jpiust
require the fortuitous concurrence of many foreign causes
that might never arise, and without which he would
have remained for ever in his primitive condition, I must
now collect and consider the different accidents which may
have improved the human understanding while depraving

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the species, and made man wicked while making him
sociable; so as to bring him and the world from that
distant period to the point at which we now behold them.
I confess that, as the events I am going to describe
might have happened in various ways, I have nothing to
determine my choice but conjectures : but such conjectures
become reasons, when they are the most probable Uiat can
be drawn from the nature of things, and the only means
of discovering the truth. The consequences, however,
which I mean to deduce will not be barely conjectural ; as,
on the principles just laid down, it would be impossible to
form any other theory that would not furnish the same
results, and from which I could not draw the same con-
clusions.

This will be a sulfficient apology for my not dwelling on
the manner in which the lapse of time compensates for the
little probability in. the events; on the surprising power of
trivial causes, when their action is constant; on the im-
possibility, on the one hand, of destroying certain hypo-
theses, though on the other we cannot give them the
certainty of known matters of fact ; on its being within the
province of history, when two facts are given as real, and
have to be connected by a series of intermediate facts,
I which are unknown or supposed to be so, to supply such
I facts as may connect them ; and on its being in the province
of philosophy when history is silent, to determine similar
facts to serve the same end; and lastly, on the influence
of similarity, which,'^in the case of events, reduces the facts
to a much smaller number of different classes than is com-
monly imagined. It is enough for me to offer these hints
to the consideration of my judges, and to have so arranged
that the general reader has no need to consider them
at all.

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The Origin of Inequality a^

THE SECOND PART

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground^
bethought himself of saying This is mine, and foundV
people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder V
of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and
murSers, from how many horrors and misfortunes might
not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the
stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows,
** Beware of listening to this impostor ; you are undone if
you once forget that the fruits of the earth, belong to
us all, and the earth itself to nobody." |But there is
great probability that things had then already come to
such a pitch, that they could no longer continue as they
were; for the idea of property depends on many prior
ideas, which could only be acquired successively, and can-
not have been formed all at once in the human mind.
/iMankind must have made very considerable progress,
lland acquired considerable knowledge and industry which
llthey must also have transmitted and increased from age
Uto age, hfffnrg th^y arrived at this last po int of the State
•of natur^ < ^t us then go farther bac^ and endeavour
to unify under i SlRg'ie pomi oi view tnat slow succession
of events and discoveries in the most natural order.

Man's first feeling was that of his own existence, and
his first care that of self-preservation. The produce of
the earth furnished him with all he needed, and instinct
tol(j[ him how to use it. Hunger and other appetites made
him at various times experience various modes of exist-
ence; and among these was one which urged him to pro-
pagate his species — a blind propensity that, having nothing
to do with the heart, produced a merely animal act. The
want once gratified, the two sexes knew each other no
more; and even the offspring was nothing to its mother,
as soon as it could do without her.

Such was the condition of infant man; the life of
aii animal limited at first to mere sensations, and hardly
profiting by the gifts nature bestowed on him, much less
capable of entertaining a thought of forcing anything
from her. But difficulties soon presented themselves, and

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it became necessary to learn how to surmount them : the
height of the trees, which prevented him from gathering-
their fruits, the competition of other animals desirous of
the same fruits, and the ferocity of those who needed them
for their own preservation, all obliged him to apply himself
to bodily exercises. He had to bie active, swift of foot,
and vigorous in light. Natural weapons, stones and sticks,
were easily found : he learnt to surmount the obstacles of
nature, to contend in case of necessity with other animals,
and to dispute for the means of subsistence even with
other men, or to indemnify himself for what he was forced
to give up to a stronger.

In proportion as the human race grew more numerous,
men's cares increased. The difference of soils, climates
and seasons, must have introduced some differences into
their manner of living. Barren years, long and sharp
winters, scorching summers which parched the fruits of the
earth, must have demanded a new industry. On the sea-
shore and the banks of rivers, they invented the hook and
line, and became fishermen and eaters of fish. In the
forests they made bows and arrows, and became huntsmen
and warriors. In cold countries they clothed themselves
with the skins of the beasts they had slain. The lightning,
a volcano, or some lucky chance acquainted them with fire,
a new resource against the rigours of winter: they next
learned how to preserve this element, then how to repro-
duce it, and finally how to prepare with it the flesh of
animals which before they had eaten raw.

This repeated relevance of various beings to himself,
and one to another, would naturally give rise in the human
mind to the perceptions of certain relations between them.
Thus the relations which we denote by the terms, great,
small, strong, weak, swift, slow, fearful, bold, and the
like, almost insensibly compared at need, must have at
length produced in him a kind of reflection, or rather a
mechanical prudence, which would indicate to him the
precautions most necessary to his security.

The new intelligence which resulted from this develop-
ment increased his superiority over other animals, by
making him sensible of it. He would now endeavour,
therefore, to ensnare them, would play them a thousand
tricks, and though many of them might surpass him in

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The Origin of Inequality 209

swiftness or in strength, would in time become 'the master
of some and the scourge of others. Thus, the first time
he looked into himself , he felt the first emotion of pride ;
and, at a time when he scarce knew how to distinguish
the different orders of beings, by looking upon his species
as of the highest order, he prepared the way for assuming
pre-eminence as an individual.

Other men, it is true, were not then to him what they
now are to us, and he had no greater intercourse with
them than with other animals ; yet they were not neglected
in his observations. The conformities, which he would in
time discover between them, and between himself and his
female, led him to judge of others which were not then
perceptible; and finding that they all behaved as he him-
self would have done in like circumstances, he naturally
inferred that their manner of thinking and acting was
altogether in conformity with his own. This important
truth, once deeply impressed on his mind, must have
induced him, from an intuitive feeling more certain and
much more rapid than any kind of reasoning, to pursue
the rules of conduct, which he had best observe towards
them, for his own security and advantage.

Taught by experience that the love of well-being is the
sole motive of human actions, he found himself in a posi-
tion to distinguish the few cases, in which mutual interest
might justify him in relying upon the assistance of his
fellows ; and also the still fewer cases in which a conflict of
interests might give cause to suspect them. In the former
case, he joined in the same herd with them, or at most in
some kind of loose association, that laid no restraint on
its members, and lasted no longer than the transitory
occasion that formed it. In the latter case, every one
sought his own private advantage, either by open force, if
he thought himself strong enough, or by address and
cunning, if he felt himself the weaker.

In this manner, men may have insensibly acquired
some gross ideas of mutual undertakings, and of the
advantages of fulfilling them : that is, just so far as their
present and apparent interest was concerned : for they
were perfect strangers to foresight, and were so far from
troubling themselves about the distant future, that they
hardly thought of the morrow. If a deer was to be taken.

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every one saw that^ in order to succeed, he must abide
faithfully by his post: but if a hare happened to come
within the reach of any one of them, it is not to be doubted
that he pursued it without scruple, and, having- seized his
prey, cared very little, if by so dcnng te caus^ his com-
panions to miss theirs.

It is easy to understand that such intercourse would not
require a language much more refined than that of rooks
or monkeys, who assodate together for much the same
psrpose. Inarticulate cries, plenty of gestures and some
imitative sounds, must have been for a long- time the
universal language ; and by the addition, in every country,
of scMne conventional articulate sounds (of which, as I
have already intimated, the first institution is not too easy
to explain) particular languages were produced ; but these
• were rude and imperfect, and nearly si|ph a^^ arengw^o
'bejou ad amon^ ^g? ^ gavag^ q attnn^l

Hurried on by the rapidity of time; by the abundance of
things I have to say, and by the almost insensible progress
of things in their beginnings, I pass over in an instant a
multitude of ages ; for the slower the events were in their
succession, the more rapidly may they be described.

These first advances ^mabled men to make others with
greater rapidity. In proportion as they grew enlightened,
uiey grew industrious. They ceased to fall asleep under
the first tree, or in the first cave that aflForded them
shelter ; they invented several kinds of implements of hard
and sharp stones, which they used to dig up the earth,
and to cut wood ; they then made huts out of branches, and
afterwards learnt to plaster them over with mud and clay.
This was the epoch of a first revolution, which established
and distinguished families, and introduced a kind of
property, in itself the source of a thousand quarrels and
conflicts. As, however, the strongest were probably the
first to build themselves huts which they felt themselves ^
able to defend, it may be concluded that the weak found
it much easier and safer to imitate, than to .attempt to
dislodge them : and of those who were once provided with
huts, none could have any inducement to appropriate that
of his neighbour; not indeed so much because it did not
belong to him, as because it could be of no use, and he
could not make himself master of it without exposing

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The Origin of Inequality 211

himself to a desperate battle with the family which
occupied it.

The first expansions of the human heart were the effects>
of a novel situation, which united husbands and wives,
fathers and children, under one roof. The habit of living
together soon gave rise to the finest feelings known to
humanity, conjugal love and paternal affection. Every ^
family became a little society, the more united because
Kbcfty—and reciprocal attachment were the only bonds
of its union. The sexes, whose manner of life had been
hitherto the same, began now to adopt different ways of
living. The women became more sedentary, and accus-
tomed themselves to mind the hut and their children,
while the men went abroad in search of their common
subsistence. From living a softer life, both sexes also
began to lose something of their strength and ferocity :
but, if individuals became to some extent less able to
encounter wild beasts separately, they found it, on the
other hand, easier to assemble and resist in common.

The simplicity and solitude of man's life in this new
condition, the paucity of his wants, and the implements
he had invented to satisfy them, left him a great deal of
leisure, which he employed to furnish himself with many
conveniences unknown to his fathers : and this was the
first yoke he inadvertently imposed on himself, and the
first source of the evils he prepared for his descendants.
For, besides continuing thus to enervate both body and
mind, these conveniences lost with use almost all their
power to please, arfd even degenerated into real needs,
till the want of them became far more disagreeable than
the possession of them had been pleasant. Men would
have been unhappy at the loss of them, though the
possession did not make them happy.

We can here see a little better how the use of speech
became established, and insensibly improved in each
family, and we may form a conjecture also concerning the
lAanner in which various causes may have extended and
accelerated the progress of language, by making it more
^nd more necessary. Floods or earthquakes surrounded
inhabited districts with precipices or waters : revolutions
of the globe tore off portions from the continent, and made
them islands. It is readily seen that among men thus

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collected and compelled to live together, a common idiom
must have arisen much more easily than among those who
still wandered through the forests of the continent. Thus
it is very possible that after their first essays in naviga-
tion the islanders brought over the use of speech to the
continent : and it is at least very probable that communi-
ties and languages were first established in islands, and
even came to perfection there before they were known on
the mainland.

Everything now begins to change its aspect. Men,
who have up to now been roving in the woods, by taking
to a more settled manner of life, come gradually together,
form separate bodies, and at length in every country arises
a distinct nation, united in character and manners, not by
regulations or laws, but by uniformity of life and food,
and the common influence of climate. Permanent neigh-
bourhood could not fail to produce, in time, some connec-
tion between different families. Among young people of
opposite sexes, living in neighbouring huts, the transient
commerce required by nature soon led, through mutual
intercourse, to another kind not less agreeable, and more
permanent. Men began now to take the difference between
objects into account, and to make comparisons; they
acquired imperceptibly the ideas of beauty and merit,
which soon gave rise to feelings of preference. In con-
sequence of seeing each other often, they could not do
without seeing each other constantly. A tender and plea-
sant feeling insinuated itself into their souls, and the least
opposition turned it into an impetuous fury : with love
arose jealousy; discord triumphed, and human blood was
sacrificed to the gentlest of all passions.

As ideas and feelings succeeded one another, and heart
and head were brought into play, men continued to lay
aside their original wildness; their private connections
became every day more intimate as their limits extended.
They accustomed themselves to assemble before their huts
round a large tree ; singing and dancing, the true offspring
of love and leisure, became the amusement, or rather the
occupation, of men and women thus assembled together
with nothing else to do. Each one began to consider the
rest, and to wish to be considered in turn; and thus a
value came to be attached to public esteem. Whoever

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The Origin of Inequality 213

sang or danced best, whoever was the handsomest, the
strongest, the most dexterous, or the most eloquent, came
to be of most consideration; and this was the first step
towards inequality, and at the same time towards
vice. From these first distinctions arose on the one side
vanity and contempt and on the other shame and envy :
and the fermentation caused by these new leavens ended
by producing combinations fatal to innocence and happiness.

As soon as men began to value one another, and the
idea of consideration had got a footing in the mind, every
one put in his claim to it, and it became impossible to
refuse it to any with impunity. Hence arose the first
obligations of civility even among savages; and every
intended injury became an affront; because, besides the
hurt which might result from it, the party injured was
certain to find in it a contempt for his person, which was
often more insupportable than the hurt itself.

Thus, as every man punished the contempt shown him
by others, in proportion to his opinion of himself, revenge
became terrible, and men bloody and cruel. This is
precisely the state reached by most of the savage nations
known to us : and it is for want of having made a proper
distinction in our ideas, and seen how very far they already
are from the state of nature, that so many writers have
hastily concluded that man is naturally cruel, and requires
civil institutions to make him more mild ; whereas nothing
is more gentle than man in his primitive state, as he is
placed by nature at an equal distance from the stupidity
of brutes, and the fatal ingenuity of civilised man. Equally
confined by instinct and reason to the sole care of guard-
ing himself against the mischiefs which threaten him, he
is restrained by natural compassion from doing any injury
to others, and is not led to do such a thing even in return
for injuries received. For, according to the axiom of the
wise Locke, There can he no injury, where there is no
property.

But it must be remarked that the society thus formed,
and the relations thus established among men, required
of them qualities different from those which they pos-
sessed from their primitive constitution. Morality began
to appear in human actions, and every one, before the
institution of law, was the only judge and avenger of

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the injuries done him, so that the goodness which was
suitable in the pure state of nature was no longer proper
in the new-born state of society. Punishments had to be
made more severe, as opportunities of offending became
more frequent, and the dread of vengeance had to take
the place of the rigour of the law. Thus, though men
had become less patient, and their natural compassion
had already suffered some diminution, this period of
expansion of th^^, human faculties, keeping a just mean
between the indolence of the primitive state and the
petulant activity of our egoism, must have been the hap-
piest and most stable of epochs. The more we reflect on
it, the more we shall find that this state was the least
subject to revolutions, and altogether the very best man
could experience; so that he can have departed from it
only through some fatal accident, which, for the public
good, should never have happened. The example of
savages, most of whom have been found in this state,
seems to prove that men were meant to remain in it, that
it is the real youth of the world, and that all subsequent
advances have been apparently so many steps towards
the perfection of the individual, but in reality towards the
decrepitude of the species.

So long as men remained content with their rustic huts,
so long as they were satisfied with clothes made of the
skins of animals and sewn together with thorns and fish-
bones, adorned themselves only with feathers and shells,
and continued to paint their bodies different colours, to im-
prove and beautify their bows and arrows and to make with
sharp-edged stones fishing boats or clumsy musical instru-
ments ; in a word, so long as they undertook only what a
single person could accomplish, and confined themselves to
such arts as did not require the joint labour of several
hands, they lived free, healthy, honest and happy lives, so
long as their nature allowed, and as they continued to
enjoy the pleasures of mutual and independent intercourse.
But from the moment one man began to stand in need of
the help of another ; from the moment it appeared advan-
tageous to any one man to have enough provisions for
two, equality disappeared, property was introduced, work
became indispensable, and vast forests became smiling
fields, which man had to water with the sweat of his

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brow, and where slavery and misery were soon seen to
germinate and grow up with the crops.

Metallurgy and agr icul ture were the two arts which
produced this gresil levuluLlOUr The poets tell us it was
gold and silver, but, for the philosophers, it was iron and
corn, which first civilised men, and ruined humanity. Thus
both were unknown to the savages of America, who for '^
'that reason are stui savage i the other nations also seem <;'^^
to AiVe continued in a state of barbarism while they ^^
practised only one of these arts. One of the best reasons, y
perhaps, why Europe has been, if not longer, at least more
constantly and highly civilised than the rest of the world,
is that it is at once the most abundant in iron and the
most fertile in corn.

It is difficult to conjecture how men first came to know
and u^e iron; for it is impossible to suppose they would
of themselves think of digging the ore out of the mine,
and preparing it for smelting, before they knew what
would be the result. On the other hand, we have the less
reason to suppose this discovery the effect of any accidental
fire, as mines are only formed in barren places, bare of
trees and plants ; so that it looks as if nature had taken
pains to keep the fatal secret from us. There remains,
therefore, only the extraordinary accident of some volcano
which, by ejecting metallic substances already in fusion,
suggested to the spectators the idea of imitating the
natural operation. And we must further conceive them as
possessed of uncommon courage and foresight, to under-
take so laborious a work, with so distant a prospect of
drawing advantage from it; yet these qualities are united
only in minds more advanced than we can suppose those
of these first discoverers to have been.

With regard to agriculture, the principles of it were
known long before they were put in practice; and it is
indeed hardly possible that men, constantly employed in
drawing their subsistence from plants and trees, should
not readily acquire a knowledge of the means made use of
by nature for the propagation of vegetables. It was in all
probability very Fong, however, before their industry took
that turn, either because trees, which together with hunt-
ing and fishing afforded them food, did not require their
attention; or because they were ignorant of the use^^

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corn, or without instruments to cultivate it; or because
they lacked foresight to future needs; or lastly, because
they were; without means of preventing others from
robbing them of the fruit of their labour.

When they grew more industrious, it is natural to believe
that they began, with the help of sharp stones and pointed
sticks, to cultivate a few vegetables or roots around their
huts ; though it was long before they knew how to prepare
corn, or were provided with the implements necessary for
raising it in any large quantity; not to mention how
essential it is, for husbandry, to consent to immediate
loss, in order to reap a future gain — a precaution very
foreign to the turn of a savage's mind ; for, as I have said,
he hardly foresees in the morning what he will need at
night.

The invention of the * other arts must therefore have
been necessary to compel mankind to apply themselves
to agriculture. No sooner were artificers wanted to smelt
and forge iron, than others were required to maintain
them ; the more hands that were employed in manufactures,
the fewer were left to provide for the common subsistence,
though the number of mouths to be furnished with food
remained the same : and as some required commodities in
exchange for their iron, the rest at length discovered the
method of making iron serve for the multiplication of
commodities. By this means the arts of husbandry and
agriculture were established on the one hand, and the art
of working metals and multiplying their uses on the other.

The cultivation of the earth necessarily brought about
its distribution; and property, once recognised, gave rise
to the first rules of justice; for, to secure each man his
own, it had to be possible for each to have something.
Besides, as men began to look forward to the future, and
all had something to lose, every one had reason to appre-
hend that reprisals would follow any injury he might do
to another. This origin is so much the more natural, as
it is impossible to conceive how' property can come from
anything but manual labour : for what else can a man add
to things which he does not originally create, so as to
make them his own property? It is the husbandman's
labour alone that, giving him a title to the produce of the
ground he has tilled, gives him a claim also to the land

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The Origin of Inequality ^T^)

itself, at least till harvest ; and so, from year to year, a con-
stant possession which is easily transformed into property.
When the ancients, says Grotius, gave to Ceres the title
of Legislatrix, and to a festival celebrated in her honour
the name of Thesmophoria, they meant by that that the
distribution of lands had produced a new kind of right:
that is to say, the right of property, which is different
from the right deducible from the law of nature.

In this state of affairs, equality might have been sus- \\
tained, had the talents of individuals been equal, and
had, for example, the use of iron and the consumption
of commodities always exactly balanced each other; but,
as there was nothing to preserve this balance, it was
soon disturbed; the strongest did most work; the most
skilful turned his labour to best account ; the most ingeni- * ,
ous devised methods of diminishing his labour: the hus- ^
bandman wanted more iron, or the smith more corn, and, j
while both laboured equally, the one gained a great deal i;
by his work, while the other could hardly support himself, f
Tlius natural inequality unfolds itself insensibly with that |
of combination, and the difference between men, developed J]
by their different circumstances, becomes more sensible 1 1
and permanent in its effects, and begins to have an in-H
fluence, in the same proportion, over the lot of individuals. J

Matters once at this pitch, it is easy to imagine the rest J^
I shall not detain the reader with a description of the
successive invention of other arts, the development of
language, the trial and utilisation of talents, the inequality
of fortunes, the use and abuse of riches, and all the details
connected with them which the reader can easily supply for
himself. I shall confine myself to a glance at mankind
in this new situation.

Behold then all human faculties developed, memory and J
imagination in full play, egoism interested, reason active,
and the mind almost at the highest point of its perfection.
Behold all the natural qualities in action, the rank and
condition of every man assigned him ; not merely his share
of property and his power to serve or injure others, but
also his wit, beauty, strength or skill, merit or talents :
and these being the only qualities capable of commanding
respect, it soon became necessary to possess or to affect
them.

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It now became the interest of men to appear what they
really were not. To be and to seem became two totally
different things; and from this distinction sprang insolent
pomp and cheating trickery, with all the numerous vices
that go in their train. On the other hand, free and inde-
pendent as men were before, they were now, in conse-
quence of a multiplicity of new wants, brought into sub-
jection, as it were, to all nature, and particularly to one
another ; and each became in some degree a slave even in
becoming the master of other men : if rich, they stood
in need of the services of others ; if poor, of their assist-
ance; and even a middle condition did not enable them to
do without one another. Man must now, therefore, have
been perpetually employed in getting others to interest
themselves in his lot, and in making them, apparently at
least, if not really, find their advantage in promoting his
own. Thus he must have been sly and artful in his
behaviour to some, and imperious and cruel to others;
being under a kind of necessity to ill-use all the persons
of whom he stood in need, when he could not frighten
them into compliance, and did not judge it his interest to
be useful to them. Insatiable ambition, the thirst of rais-
ing their respective fortunes, not so much from real want
as from the desire to surpass others, inspired all men with
a vile propensity to injure one another, and with a secret
jealousy, which is the more dangerous, as it puts on the
mask of benevolence, to carry its point with greater
security. In a word, there arose rivalry and competition
on the one hand, and conflicting interests on the other,
together with a secret desire on both of profiting at the
expense of others. All these evils were the first effects of
property, and the inseparable attendants of growing
inequality.

Before the invention of signs to represent riches, wealth
could hardly consist in anything but lands and cattle, the
only real possessions men can have. But, when inheritances
so increased in number and extent as to occupy the whole
of the land, and to border on one another, one man could
aggrandise himself only at the expense of another; at the
same time the supernumeraries, who had been too weak
or too indolent to make such acquisitions, and had grown
poor without sustaining any loss, because, while they saw

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The Origin of Inequality 219

everything change around them, they remained still the
same, were obliged to receive tlxeir subsistence, or steal
it, from the rich; and this soon bred, according to their
different characters, dominion and slavery, or violence and
rapine. The wealthy, on their part, had no sooner begun
to taste the pleasure of command, than they disdained
all others, and, using their old slaves to acquire new,
thought of nothing but subduing and enslaving their
neighbours; like ravenous wolves, which, having once
tasted human flesh, despise every other food and thence-
forth seek only men to devour.

Thus, as the most powerful or the most miserable con-
sidered their might or misery as a kind of right to the
possessions of others, equivalent, in their opinion, to that
of property, the destruction of equality was attended by
the most terrible disorders. Usurpations by the rich^
robbery by the poor, and the unbridled passions of both,
suppressed the cries of natural compassion and the still
feeble voice of justice, and filled men with avarice, ambition
and vice. Between the title of the strongest and that of
the first occupier, there arose perpetual conflicts, which
never ended but in battles and bloodshed. The new-born
state of society thus gave rise to a horrible state of war;
men thus harassed and depraved were no longer capable
of retracing their steps or renouncing the fatal acquisi-
tions they had made, but, labouring by the abuse of the
faculties which do them honour, merely to their own
confusion, brought themselves to the brink of ruin.

.AUonitus novitate malt, divesque miser que,
Effugere optai opes ; et qua modd voverai odit.^

It is impossible that men should not at length have
reflected on so wretched a situation, and on the calamities
that overwhelmed them. The rich, in particular, must
have felt how much they suffered by a constant state of
war, of which they bore all the expense; and in which,
though all risked their lives, they alone risked their pro-
perty. Besides, however speciously they might disguise

* [Ovid, Metamorphoses xi, 127.

Both rich and poor, shocked at their oew-fonnd ills,
Would fly from wealth, and lose what they had sought.]

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their usurpations, they knew that they were founded on pre-
carious and false titles; so that, if others took from them
by force what they themselves had gained by force, they
would have no reason to complain. Even those who had
been enriched by their own industry, could hardly base
their proprietorship on better claims. It was in vain to
repeat, "I built this well; I gained this spot by my
industry." Who gave you your standing, it might be
answered, and what right have you to demand payment
of us for doing what we never asked you to do? Do you
not know that numbers of your fellow-creatures are starv-
ing, for want of what you have too much of ? You ought
to have had the express and universal consent of mankind,
before appropriating more of the common subsistence than
you needed for your own maintenance. Destitute of valid
reasons to justify and sufficient strength to defend himself,
able to crush individuals with ease, but easily crushed
himself by a troop of bandits, one against all, and incap-
able, on account of mutual jealousy, of joining with his
equals against numerous enemies united by the common
hope of plunder, the rich man, thus urged by necessity,
conceived at length the profoundest plan that ever entered
the mind of man : this was to employ in his favour the
forces of those who attacked him, to make allies of his
adversaries, to inspire them with different maxims, and
to give them other institutions as favourable to himself
as the law of nature was unfavourable.

With this view, after having represented to his neigh-
bours the horror of a situation which armed every man
against the rest, and made their possessions as burdensome
to them as their wants, and in which no safety could be
expected either in riches or in poverty, he readily devised
plausible arguments to make them close with his design.
"Let us join," said he, "to guard the weak from oppres-
sion, to restrain the ambitious, and secure to every man
the possession of what belongs to him : let us institute
rules of justice and peace, to which all without exception
may be obliged to conform; rules that may in some
measure make amends for the caprices of fortune, by
subjecting equally the powerful and the weak to the
observance of reciprocal obligations. Let us, in a word,
instead of turning our forces against ourselves, collect

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The Origin of Inequality 221

them in a supreme power which may govern us by wise
laws, protect and defend all the members of the associa-
tion, repulse their common enemies, and maintain eternal
harmony among us."

Far fewer words to this purpose would have been
enough to impose on men so barbarous and easily seduced ;
especially as they had too many disputes among them-
selves to do without arbitrators, and too much ambition
and avarice to go long without masters. All ran head-
long to their chains, in hopes of securing their liberty;
for they had just wit enough to perceive the advantages of
political institutions, without experience enough to enable
them to foresee the dangers. The most capable of fore-
seeing the dangers were the very persons who expected
to benefit by them; and even the most prudent judged it
not inexpedient to sacrifice one part of their freedom to
ensure the rest ; as a wounded man has his arm cut off to
save the rest of his body.

Such was, or may well have been, the origin of society and
law, which bound new fetters on the poor, and gave new
powers to the rich; which irretrievably destroyed natural
liberty, eternally fixed the law of property and inequality,
converted clever usurpation into unalterable right, and,
for the advantage of a few ambitious individuals, subjected
all mankind to perpetual labour, slavery and wretched-
ness. It is easy to see how the establishment of one
community made that of all the rest necessary, and how,
in order to make head against united forces, the rest of
mankind had to unite in turn. Societies soon multiplied
and spread over the face of the earth, till hardly a corner
of the world was left in which a man could escape the
yoke, and withdraw his head from beneath the sword
which he saw perpetually hanging over him by a thread.
Civil right having thus become the common rule among
the members of each community, the law of nature main-
tained its place only between different communities, where,
under the name of the right of nations, it was qualified
by certain tacit conventions, in order to make commerce
practicable, and serve as a substitute for natural compas-
sion, which lost, when applied to societies, almost all the
influence it had over individuals, and survived no longer
except in some great cosmopolitan spirits, who, breakincr

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down the imaginary barriers that separate different
peoples, follow tiie example of our Sovereign Creator, and
include the whole human race in their benevolence.

But bodies politic, remaining thus in a state of nature
among themselves, presently experienced the inconveni-
ences which had obliged individuals to forsake it ; for this
state became still more fatal to these great bodies than
it had been to the individuals of whom they were com-
posed. Hence arose national wars, battles, murders, and
reprisals, which shock nature and outrage reason ; together
with all those horrible prejudices which class among the
virtues the honour of shedding human blood. The most
distinguished men hence learned to consider cutting each
other's throats a duty; at length men massacred their
fellow-creatures by thousands without so much as know-
ing why, and committed more murders in a single day's
fighting, and more violent outrages in the sack of a
single town, than were committed in the state of nature
during whole ages over the whole earth. Such were the
first effects which we can see to have followed the division
of mankind into different communities. But let us return
to their institutions.

I know that some writers have given other explanations
of the origin of political societies, such as the conquest of
the powerful, or the association of the weak. It is, indeed,
indifferent to my argument which of these causes we
choose. That which I have just laid down, however,
appears to me the most natural for the following reasons.
First : because, in the first case, the right of conquest,
being no right, in itself, could not serve as a foundation
on which to build any other ; the victor and the vanquished
people still remained with respect to each other in the
state of war, unless the vanquished, restored to the full
possession of their liberty, voluntarily made choice of the
victor for their chief. For till then, whatever capitulation
may have been made being founded on violence, and
therefore ipso facto void, there could not have been on
this hypothesis either a real society or body politic, or any
law other than that of the strongest. Secondly : because
the words strong and weak are, in the second case, am-
biguous ; for during the interval between the establishment
of a right of property, or prior occupancy, and that of

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The Origin of Inequality 223

political government, the meaning of these words is better
expressed by the terms rich and poor: because, in fact,
before the institution of laws, men had no other way of
reducing their equals to submission, than by attacking
their goods, or making some of their own over to them^
Thirdly : because, as the poor had nothing but their free-
dom to lose, it would have been in the highest degree
absurd for them to resign voluntarily the only good they
still enjoyed, without getting anything in exchange:
whereas the rich having feelings, if I may so express
myself, in every part of their possessions, it was much
easier to harm them, and therefore more necessary for
them to take precautions against it; and, in short, because
it is more reasonable to suppose a thing to have been
invented by those to whom it would be of service, than
by those whom it must have harmed.

Government had, in its infancy, no regular and con-
stant form. The want of experience and philosophy pre-
vented men from seeing any but present inconveniences,
and they thought of providing against others only as they
presented themselves. In spite of the endjeavours of the
wisest legislators, the political state remained imperfect,
because it was little more than the work of chance; and,
as it had begun ill, though time revealed its defects and
suggested remedies, the original faults were never
repaired. It was continually being patched up, when the
first task should have been to get the site cleared and all
the old materials removed, as was done by Lycurgus at
Sparta, if a stable and lasting edifice was to be erected.
Society consisted at first merely of a few general conven-
tions, which every member bound himself to observe; and
for the performance of covenants the whole body went
security to each individual. Experience only could show
the weakness of such a constitution, and how easily it
might be infringed with impunity, from the difficulty of
convicting men of faults, where the public alone was to
be witness and judge : the laws could not but be eluded in
many ways; disorders and inconveniences could not but
multiply continually, till it became necessary to commit
the dangerous trust of public authority to private persons,
and the care of enforcing obedience to the delil^rations
of the people to the magistrate. For to say that chiefs

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were chosen before the confederacy was formed, and that
the administrators of the laws were there before the laws
themselves, is too absurd a supposition to consider
seriously.

It would be as unreasonable to suppose that men at first
threw themselves irretrievably and unconditionally into
the arms of an absolute master, and that the first expedient
which proud and unsubdued men hit upon for their com-
mon security was to run headlong into slavery. For what
reason, in fact, did they take to themselves superiors, if
it was not in order that they might be defended from
oppression, and have protection for their lives, liberties
and properties, which are, so to speak, the constituent
elements of their being? Now, in the relations between
man and man, the worst that can happen is for one to
find himself at the mercy of another, and it would have
been inconsistent with common-sense to begin by bestow-
ing on a chief the only things they wanted his help to pre-
serve. What equivalent could he offer them for so great
a right? And if he had presumed to exact it under pretext
of defending them, would he not have received the answer
recorded in the fable : ** What more can the enemy do to
us?" It is therefore beyond dispute, and indeed the
fundamental maxim of all political right, that people have
set up chiefs to protect their liberty, and not to enslave
them. // we have a prince, said Pliny to Trajan, it is to
save ourselves from having a master.

Politicians indulge in the same sophistry about the love
of liberty as philosophers about the state of nature. They
judge, by what they see, of very different things, which
they have not seen; and attribute to man a natural pro-
pensity to servitude, because the slaves within their
observation are seen to bear the yoke with patience; they
fail to reflect that it is with liberty as with innocence and
virtue; the value is known only to those who possess them,
and the taste for them is forfeited when they are forfeited
themselves. "I know the charms of your country," said
Brasidas to a Satrap, who was comparing the life at
Sparta with that at Persepolis, "but you cannot know the
pleasures of mine."

An unbroken horse erects his mane, paws the ground
and starts back impetuously at the sight of the bridle ;

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The Origin of Inequality 225

while one which is properly trained suffers patiently even
whip and spur : so savag-e man will not bend his neck to
the yoke to which civilised man submits without a mur-
mur, but prefers the most turbulent state of liberty to the
most peaceful slavery. We cannot therefore, from the
servility of nations already enslaved, judge of the natural
disposition of mankind for or against slavery ; we should
go by the prodigious efforts of every free people to save
itself from oppression. I know that the former are
for ever holding forth in praise of the tranquillity they
enjoy in their chains, and that they call a state of wretched
servitude a state of peace : miserrimam servitutetn pacem
appellant.^ But when I observe the latter sacrificing
pleasure, peace, wealth, power and life itself to the pre-
servation of that one treasure, which is so disdained by
those who have lost it ; when I see free-bom animals dash
their brains out against the bars of their cage, from an
innate impatience of captivity; when I behold numbers
of naked savages, that despise European pleasures, brav-
ing hunger, fire, the sword and death, to preserve nothing
but their independence, I feel that it is not for slaves to
argue about liberty.

With regard to paternal authority, from which some
writers have derived absolute government and all society,
it is enough, without going back to the contrary argu-
ments of Locke and Sidney, to remark that nothing on
earth can be further from the ferocious spirit of despotism
than the mildness of that authority which looks more to
the advantage of him who obeys than to that of him who
commands; that, by the law of nature, the father is the
child's master no longer than his help is necessary; that
from that time they are both equal, the son being perfectly
independent of the father, and owing him oiSy respect
and not obedience. For gratitude is a duty which ought
to be paid, but not a right to be exacted : instead of saying
that civil society is derived from paternal authority, we
ought to say rather that the latter derives its principal
force from the former. No individual was ever acknow-
ledged as the father of many, till his sons and daughters
remained settled around him. The goods of the father,

^ [Tacitus, Hist iv, 17. The most wretched slavery they call peace.]
K

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of which he is really the master, are the ties which keep
his children in dependence, and he may bestow on them,
if he pleases, no share of his property, unless they merit
it by constant deference to his will. But the subjects of
an arbitrary despot are so far from having the like favour
to expect from their chief, that they themselves and every-
thing they possess are his property, or at least are con-
sidered by him as such ; so that they are forced to receive,
as a favour, the little of their own he is pleased to leave
them. When he despoils them, he does but justice, and
mercy in that he permits them to live.

By proceeding thus to test fact by right, we should
discover as little reason as truth in the voluntary estab-
lishment of tyranny. It would also be no easy matter to
prove the validity of a contract binding on only one of
the parties, where all the risk is on one side, and none
on the other; so that no one could suffer but he who
bound himself. This hateful system is indeed, even in
modern times, very far from being that of wise and good
monarchs, and especially of the kings of France; as may
be seen from several passages in their edicts ; particularly
from the following passage in a celebrated edict published
in 1667 in the name and by order of Louis XIV.

" Let it not, therefore, be said that the Sovereign is not
subject to the laws of his State; since the contrary is a
true proposition of the right of nations, which flattery has
sometimes attacked but good princes have always de-
fended as the tutelary divinity of their dominions. How
much more legitimate is it to say with the wise Plato,
that the perfect felicity of a kingdom consists in the
obedience of subjects to their prince, and of the prince to
the laws, and in the laws being just and constantly directed
to the public good ! " ^

I shall not stay here to inquire whether, as liberty is
the noblest faculty of man, it is not degrading our very
nature, reducing ourselves to the level of the brutes,
which are mere slaves of instinct, and even an affront to
the Author of our being, to renounce without reserve the
most precious of all His gifts, and to bow to the necessity

^ Of the Rights of the Most Christian Queen over various States of the
Monarchy of Spain, 1667.

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The Origin of Inequality 227

of committing all the crimes He has forbidden, merely to
gratify aylftad or a cruel master; or if this sublime
craftsman ought not to be less angered at seeing His
workmAnship entirely destroyed than thus dishonoured.
I will waive (if my opponents please) the authority of
Barbeyrac, who, following Locke, roundly declares that
no man can so far sell his liberty as to submit to an
arbitrary power which may use him as it likes. For, he
adds, this would he to sell his own life, of which he is
not master. I shall ask only what right those who were
not afraid thus to debase themselves could have to subject
their posterity to the same ignominy, and to renounce for
them those blessings which they do not owe to the liberality
of their progenitors, and without which life itself must be
a burden to all who are worthy of it.

PufFendorf says that we may divest ourselves of our
liberty in favour of other men, just as we transfer our
property from one to another by contracts and agreements.
But this seems a very weak argument. For in the first
place, the property I alienate becomes quite foreign to
me, nor can I suffer from the abuse of it; but it very
nearly concerns me that my liberty should not be abused,
and I cannot without incurring the guilt of the crimes
I may be compelled to commit, expose myself to become
an instrument of crime. Besides, the right of property
being only a convention of human institution, men may
dispose of what they possess as they please : but this is
not the case with the essential gifts of nature, such as life
and liberty, which ev^^.ry man is permitted to enjoy, and
of which it is at least doubtful whether any have a right
to divest themselves. By giving up the one, we degrade
our being ; by giving up the other, we do our best to
annul it; and, as no temporal good can indemnify us for
the loss of either, it would be an offence against both
reason and nature to renounce them at any price whatso-
ever. But, even if we could transfer our liberty, as we
do our property, there would be a great difference with
regard to the children, who enjoy the father's substance
only by the transmission of his right; whereas, liberty
being a gift which they hold from nature as being men,
their parents have no right whatever to deprive them of
it. As then, to establish slavery, it was necessary to do

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228 A Discourse on

violence to nature, so, in order to perpetuate such a right,
nature would have to be changed. Jurists, who have
gravely determined that the child of a slave comes into
the world a slave, have decided, in other words, that a
man shall come into the world not a man.

I regard it then as certain, that government did not
begin with arbitrary power, but that this is the deprava-
tion, the extreme term, of government, and brings it back,
finally, to just the law of the strongest, which it was
originally designed to remedy. Supposing, however, it
had begun in this nianner, such power, being in itself
illegitimate, could not have served as a basis for the laws
of society, nor, consequently, for the inequality they
instituted.

Without entering at present upon the investigations
which still remain to be made into the nature of the
fundamental compact underlying all government, I con-
tent myself with adopting the common opinion concerning
it, and regard the establishment of the political body as
a real contract between the people and the chiefs chosen
by them : a contract by which both parties bind them-
selves to observe the laws therein expressed, which form
the ties of their union. The people having in respect of
their social relations concentrated all their wills in one,
the several articles, concerning which this will is explained,
become so many fundamental laws, obligatory on all the
members of the State without exception, and one of these
articles regulates the choice and power of the magistrates
appointed to watch over the execution of the rest. This
power extends to everything which may maintain the
constitution, without going so far as to alter it. It is
accompanied by honours, in order to bring the laws and
their administrators into respect. The ministers are also
distinguished by personal prerogatives, in order to recom-
pense them for the cares and labour which good adminis-
tration involves. The magistrate, on his side, binds
himself to use the power he is entrusted with only in
conformity with the intention of his constituents, to
maintain them all in the peaceable possession of what
belongs to them, and to prefer on every occasion the
public interest to his own.

Before experience had shown, or knowledge of the

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The Origin of Inequality 229

human heart enabled men to foresee, the unavoidable
abuses of such a constitution, it must have appeared so much
the more excellent, as those who were charged with the
care of its preservation had themselves most interest in
it; for magistracy and the rights attaching to it being
based solely on the fundamental laws, the magistrates
would cease to be legitimate as soon as these ceased to
exist; the people would no longer owe them obedience;
and as not the magistrates, but the laws, are essentia)
to the being of a State, the members of it would regain
the right to their natural liberty.

If we reflect with ever so little attention on this subject,
we shall find new arguments to confirm this truth, and be
convinced from the very nature of the contract that it cannot
be irrevocable : for, if there were no superior power capable
of ensuring the fidelity of the contracting parties, or com-
pelling them to perform their reciprocal engagements, the
parties would be sole judges in their own cause, and each
would always have a right to renounce the contract, as soon
as he found that the other had violated its terms, or that
they no longer suited his convenience. It is upon this prin-
ciple that the right of abdication may possibly be founded.
Now, if, as here, we consider only what is human in this in-
stitution, it is certain that, if the magistrate, who has all the
power in his own hands, and appropriates to himself all the
advantages of the contract, has none the less a right to
renounce his authority, the people, who suffer for all the
faults of their chief, must have a much better right to
renounce their dependence. But the terrible and innumer-
able quarrels and disorders that would necessarily arise
from so dangerous a privilege, show, more than anything
else, how much human governments stood in need of a
more solid basis than mere reason, and how expedient it
was for the public tranquillity that the divine will should
interpose to invest the sovereign authority with a sacred
and inviolable character, which might deprive subjects of
the fatal right of disposing of it. If the world had received
no other advantages from religion, this would be enough
to impose on men the duty of adopting and cultivating it,
abuses and all, since it has been the means of saving
more blood than fanaticism has ever spilt. But let us
follow the thread of our hypothesis.

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230 A Discourse on

The different forms of government owe their origin to
the differing degrees of inequality which existed between
individuals at the time of their institution. If there
happened to be any one man among them pre-eminent in
power, virtue, riches or personal influence, he became sole
magistrate, and the State assumed the form of monarchy.
If several, nearly equal in point of eminence, stood above
the rest, they were elected jointly, and formed an aris-
tocracy. Again, among a people who had deviated less
from a state of nature, and between whose fortune or
talents there was less disproportion, the supreme adminis-
tration was retained in common, and a democracy was
formed. It was discovered in process of time which of |
these forms suited men the best. Some peoples remained
altc^ether subject to the laws; others soon came to
obey their magistrates. The citizens laboured to pre-
serve their liberty ; the subjects, irritated at seeing others
enjoying a blessing they had lost, thought only of making
slaves of their neighbours. In a word, on the one side
arose riches and conquests, and on the other happiness and
virtue.

In these different governments, all the offices were at
first elective ; and when the influence of wealth was out of
the question, the preference was given to merit, which
gives a natural ascendancy, and to age, which is experi-
enced in business and deliberate in council. The Elders of
the Hebrews, the Gerontes at Sparta, the Senate at Rome,
and the very etymology of our word Seigneur, show how
old age was once held in veneration. But the more often
the choice fell upon old men, the more often elections had
to be repeated, and the more they became a nuisance;
intrigues set in, factions were formed, party feeling grew
bitter, civil wars broke out; the lives of individuals were
sacrificed to the pretended happiness of the State; and
at length men were on the point of relapsing into their
primitive anarchy. Ambitious chiefs profited by these
circumstances to perpetuate their offices in their own
families : at the same time the people, already used to
dependence, ease, and the conveniences of life, and already
incapable of breaking its fetters, agreed to an increase
of its slavery, in order to secure its tranquillity. Thus
•magistrates, having become hereditary, contracted the

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The Origin of Inequality 231

habit of considering their offices as a family estate, and
themselves as proprietors of the communities of which
they were at first only the officers, of regarding their
fellow-citizens as their slaves, and numbering them, like
cattle, among their belongings, and of calling themselves
the equals of the gods and longs of kings.

If we follow the progress of inequality in these various
revolutions, we shadl find that the establishment of laws
and of the right of property was its first term, the institu-
tion of magistracy the second, and the conversion of
legitimate into arbitrary power the third and last; so
that the condition of rich and poor was autliorised by the
first period; that of powerful and weak by the second;
and only by the third that of master and slave, which is
the last degree of inequality, and the term at which all
the rest remain, when they have got so far, till the govern-
ment is either entirely dissolved by new revolutions, or
brought back again to legitimacy.

To understand this progress as necessary we must con-
sider not so much the motives for the establishment of
the body politic, as the forms it assumes in actuality, and
the faults that necessarily attend it: for the flaws which
make social institutions necessary are the same as make
the abuse of them unavoidable. If we except Sparta,
where the laws were mainly concerned with the education
of children, and where Lycurgus established such morality
as practically made laws needless — ^for laws as a rule,
being weaker than the passions, restrain men without
altering them — ^it would not be difficult to prove that every
government, which scrupulously complied with the ends
for which it was instituted, and guarded carefully against
change and corruption, was set up unnecessarily. For
a country, in which no one either evaded the laws or made
a bad use of magisterial power, could require neither laws
nor magistrates.

Political distinctions necessarily produce civil distinc-
tions. The growing equality between the chiefs and the
people is soon felt by individuals, and modified in a
thousand ways according to passions, talents and cir-
cumstances. The magistrate could not usurp any illegiti-
mate power, without giving distinction to the creatures
with whom he must share it. Besides, individuals only

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232 A Discourse on

allow themselves to be oppressed so far as they are
hurried on by blind ambition, and, looking rather below
than above them, come to love authority more than in-
dependence, and submit to slavery, that they may in turn
enslave others. It is no easy matter to reduce to obedience
a man who has no ambition to command; nor would the
most adroit politician find it possible to enslave a people
whose only desire was to be independent. But inequality
easily makes its way among cowardly and ambitious
minds, which are ever ready to run the risks of fortune,
and almost indifferent whether they Command or obey, as
it is favourable or adverse. Thus, there must have been
a time, when the eyes of the people were so fascinated,
that their rulers had only to say to the least of men, " Be
great, you and all your posterity," to make him imme-
diately appear great in the eyes of every one as well as in
his own. His descendants took still more upon them, in
proportion to their distance from him; the more obscure
and uncertain the cause, the greater the effect : the greater
the number of idlers one could count in a family, the more
illustrious it was held to be.

If this were the place to go into details, I could readily
explain how, even without the intervention of government,
inequality of credit and authority became unavoidable
among private persons, as soon as their union in a single
society made them compare themselves one with another,
and take into account the differences which they found out
from the continual intercourse every man had to have with
his neighbours.^ These differences are of several l^inds ; but

^ Distributive justice would oppose this rigorous equality of the state
of nature, even were it practicable in civil society ; as all the members
of the State owe it their services in poportion to their talents and abilities,
they ought, on their side, to be distinguished and fiivoured in proportion to
the services they have actually rendered. It is in this sense we must
understand that passage of Isocrates, in which he extols the primitive
Athenians, for having determined which of the two kinds of equality was
the most useful, viz. that which consists in dividing the same advantages
indiscriminately among all the citizens, or that which consists in distribut-
ing them to each according to his deserts. These able politicians, adds the
orator, banishing that unjust inequality which makes no distinction be-
tween good and bad men, adhered inviolably to that which rewards and
punishes every man according to his deserts.

But in the first place, there never existed a society, however corrupt
some may have become, where no difference was made between the good

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The Origin of Inequality 233

riches, nobility or rank, power and personal merit being
the principal distinctions by which men form an estimate
of each other in society, I could prove that the harmony
or conflict of these different forces is the surest indication
of the good or bad constitution of a State. I could show
that among these four kinds of inequality, personal quali-
ties being the origin of all the others, wealth is the one
to which they are all reduced in the end ; for, as riches tend
most immediately to the prosperity of individuals, and
are easiest to communicate, they are used to purchase
every other distinction. By this observation we are enabled
to judge pretty exactly how far a people has departed
from its primitive constitution, and of its progress
towards the extreme term of corruption. I could explain
how much this universal desire for reputation, honours
and advancement, which inflames us all, exercises and
holds up to comparison our faculties and powers; how it
excites and multiplies our passions, and, by creating
universal competition and rivalry, or rather enmity, among
men, occasions numberless failures, successes and dis-
turbances of all kinds by making so many aspirants run
the same course. I could show that it is to this desire
of being talked about, and this unremitting rage of dis-
tinguishing ourselves, that we owe the best and the worst
things we possess, both our virtues and our vices, our
science and our errors, our conquerors and our philoso-
phers; that is to say, a great many bad things, and a
very few good ones. In a word, I could prove that, if
we have a few rich and powerful men on the pinnacle of

aiid the bad ; and with regard to morality, where no measures can be
prescribed by law exact enough to serve as a practical rule for a magistrate,
It is with great prudence that, in order not to leave the fortune or quality
of the citizens to his discretion, it prohibits him from passing judgment on
persons and confines his judgment to actions. Only morals such as those of
the ancient Romans can bear censors, and such a tribunal among us would
throw everything into confusion. The difference between good and bad
men is determined by public esteem ; the magistrate being strictly a judge
of right alone ; whereas the public is the truest judge of morals, and is of
such integrity and penetration on this head, that although it may be some-
times deceived, it can never be corrupted. The rank of citizens ought,
therefore, to be regulated, not according to their personal merit — for this
would put it in the power of the magistrate to apply the law almost arbi-
rarily — ^but according to the actual services done to the State, which are
capable of being more exactly estimated.

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234 A Discourse on

fortune and grandeur, while the crowd grovels in want
and obscurity, it is because the former prize what they
enjoy only in so far as others are destitute of it; and
because, without changing their condition, they would
cease to be happy the moment the people ceased to be
wretched.

These details alone, however, would furnish' matter
for a considerable work, in which the advantages
and disadvantages of every kind of government might
be weighed, as they are related to man in the state of
nature, and at the same time all the different aspects, under
which inequality has up to the present appeared, or
may appear in ages yet to come, according to the nature
of the several governments, and the alterations which
time must unavoidably occasion in them, might be demon-
strated. We should then see the multitude oppressed from
within, in consequence of the very precautions it had taken
to guard against foreign tyranny. We should see oppres-
sion continually gain ground without it being possible
for the oppressed to know where it would stop, or what
legitimate means was left them of checking its progress.
We should see the rights of citizens, and the freedom of
nations slowly extinguished, and the complaints, protests
and appeals of the weak treated as seditious murmurings.
We should see the honour of defending the common cause
confined by statecraft to a mercenary part of the people.
We should see taxes made necessary by such means, and
the disheartened husbandman deserting his fields even in
the midst of peace, and leaving the plough to gird on the
sword. We should see fatal and capricious codes of
honour established; and the champions of their country
sooner or later becoming its enemies, and for ever holding
their daggers to the breasts of their fellow-citizens. The
time would come when they would be heard saying to the
oppressor of their country —

Pectore si fratris gladium juguloque parentis
Condere me jubeas, gravidaque in viscera partu
Conjugis, invitd peragam tamen omnia dextrd,

Lucan. i, 376.

' -; 3jnm gr ea t inequa l ity -of -fortunes and conditions, from
tEe vast variety of passions and of talents, of useless and

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The Origin of Inequality 235

pernicious arts, of vain sciences, would an g^ a tny1titndi>-/
^of prejudices equally contrary to reason , fcappiness a nd /
_virtu©r- We should see the magistrates fomenting every- f
thing that might weaken men united in society, by pro-
moting dissension among them ; everything that might >
sow in it the seeds of actual division, while i t gave society i
t he air of harmony ; everything that might inspire the \
diiterent ranks oi people with mutual hatred and distrust, .'
by setting the rights and interests of one against those of I
another, and so strengthen the power which comprehended \
them all.

It is from^ the midst of this diso rder„ai](A-the&c.. revplu-
tionSj tliaf despotism, ~"gra3ually~ raising up its hideous
head and devouring everything that remained sound and
untainted in any part of the State, would at length trample
on both the laws and the people, and establish itself on
the ruins of the republic. The times which immediately
precieded this last change would be times of trouble and
calamity; but at length the monster would swallow up
everything, and the people would no longer have either
chiefs or lawsj but only tyrants. From t his momgyit
there would be no question of virt ue ^"^ Vf]QrnV^y^] for
despotism cut exkonesio nulla est spes, wherever it pre-
vails, admits no other master; it no sooner speaks than
probity and duty lose their weight and blind obedience
is the only virtue which slaves can still practise.

This is the last term of inequality, the extreme points
that closes the circle, and meets that from which we set
out. Here all private persons return to their first
equality, because they are nothing; and, subjects having
no law but the will of their master, and their master
no restraint but his passions, all notions of good and
all principles of equity again vanish. There is here a
complete return to the law of the strongest, and so
to a new state of nature, differing from that we set out

from; ^^ ihr 0"^ WAR ^ fitatf^ nj nature in ita_jfirg<;
fmrity^ w hjle this is tfie consequence of ^yressivp rnrmp.
tion. There is so little difference between the two states
in other respects, and the contract of government is so
completely dissolved by despotism, that the despot is
master only so long as he remains the «^trnpgest ; as soon
as he can be expelled, he has no right to complain of

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236

A Discourse on

violence. The popular insurrection that ends in the death
or deposition of a Sultan is as lawful an act as those by
which he disposed,^e day before, of the lives and fortunes
of his subjects^ yAs he was m aintai ned by force alone.

Atakes place according to the natural order; and, whatever
Vmay be the result of such frequent and precipitate revolu-
tions, no one man has reason to complain of the injustice
kf another, but only of his own ill-fortune or indiscretion.
I If the reader thus discovers and retraces the lost and
forgotten road, by which man must have passed from the
state of nature to the state of society; if he carefully
restores, along with thf^jntmTjfdi^tf sitMt^tion«i "^birh T
Jiave just dftsrpb^^, those .which want of time has com-
pelled me to suppress, or my imagination has failed to
suggest, he cannot fail to be struck by., ^^le-vfwt-^igtance
which separates thetwo states.. It is injrj^djjig this slow
succession that he will find the solution of a number of
problems of politics and morals, which philosophers cannot
settle. He will feel that, men being different in different
ages, the reason why Diogenes could not find a man was
that he sought among his contemporaries a man of an
earlier period. ^^He will see that Cato died with. JUune and
liberty, beQause he did -not fit the age in which he lived;
the greatest of men served only to astonish a world which
he would certainly have ruled, had he lived five hundred
years sooner. Qlri^SLj&Qitdy he will explain how the soul
and the passions of men insensibly change their very
nature; why our wants and pleasures in the end seek
new objects; and why, the original man having vanished
by degrees, society offers to us only an assembly of
\ artificial men and factitious passions, which are the work
\ of all these new relations, and without any real foundation
i. in nature. We are taught nothing on this subject, by
i reflection, that is not entirely confirmed by observation.
'.The savage and the civilised man differ so much in the
bottom of their hearts and in their inclinations, that what
constitutes the supreme happiness of one would reduce the
other to despair. The former breathes only peace and
liberty ; he desires only to live and be free from labour ;
even the ataraxia of the Stoic falls far short of his profound
indifference to every other object. Civilised man, on the

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The Origin of Inequality 237

other hand, is always moving- ^ sweatings t oiling and rack* I
ing his brains to find still more laborious occupations : I
he goes on in drudgery to his last moment, and even seeks
death to put himself in a position to live, or renounces
life to acquire immortality. Hf* pays his ^rrnrt to men in
power, whom he hates, and to the wealthy, "whom he
despises ; he stops at nothing to have the honour of serv-
ing them; he is n o^ asharfl ^d t^ ^^^"^ hin^fielf on his own
meanness and their protection ; and, proud of his slavery,
he speaks with disdain of those, who have not the honour
of sharing it. What a sight would the perplexing and
envied labours of a European minister of State present to
the eyes of a Caribean ! How many cruel deaths would
not this indolent savage prefer to the horrors of such a life,
which is seldom even sweetened by the pleasure of doing
good ! But, for him to see into the motives of all this
solicitude, the words power and reputation, would have
to bear some meaning in his mind ; he would have to know
that "there are men who set a value on the opinion of the
rest of the world; who can be made happy and satisfied /
with themselves rather on the testimony of other peopi€
than on their own. In^eality^_tbe source, of alUthese
difigreiices i^ that the saxageJiiKes-withija.. himself,, while
socia l^ man lives constantly _ outside himself, and ooly..
^gows how to live in the opinion of others, so that he
seemSrTp~recexve the consclcxusnes^^ of his own existence
iperely from the judgment ol others concerning him. It
is not to my present purpose to insist on the indifference
to good and evil which arises from this disposition, in
spite of our many fine works on morality, or to show how,
everything being reduced to appearances, there is but art
and mummery in even honour, friendship, virtue, and often
vice itself, of which we at length learn the secret of boast-
ing; to show, in short , how, always asking others what/
we are, and never daring to ask ourselves, in the midst of '
so much philosophy, humanity and civilisation, and of such ■
sublime codes of morality, we have nothing to show for;
ourselves but a frivolous and defceitful appearance, honour
without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure with-*^
out happiness. It is sufficient that I have proved that this
is not by any means the original state of man, but that it \
is merely the spirit of society, and the inequality which i

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238 The Origin of Inequality

society produces, that thus transform and alter all our
natural inclinations.
I I have endeavoured to trace the origin and progress of
I inequality, and the institution and abuse of political
J societies, as far as these are capable of being deduced
1 from the nature of man merely by the light of reason, and
\ independently of those sacred dogmas which give the
isanction of divine right to sovereign authority. It follows
^ from this survey that, as there is hardly any inequality in
\ the state of nature, all the inequality which now prevails
■ owes its strength and growth to the development of our
faculties and the advance of the human mind, and beconies
at last permanent and legitimate by the establishment of
property and laws. ^^^Sficondl^, it follows^ that moral- in-
, equality ,^, authorised by positive right alone, clashes with
^natural right, whenever it is not proportionate to physical
inequality ; a distinction which sufficiently determines what
we ought to think of that species of inequality which
prevails in all civilised countries; since it is plainly con-
trary to the law of nature, however defined, that children
should command old men,^|ools wise men, and that the
privileged few should gorge themselves with superfluitiejs,
while the starving multitude are in want of the bare
necessities of life.

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APPENDIX*

A FAMOUS author, reckoning up the good and evil of
human life, and comparing the aggregates, finds that our
pains greatly exceed our pleasures : so that, all things
considered, human life is not at all a valuable gift. This
conclusion does not surprise me; for the writer drew all
his arguments from man in civilisation. Had he gone
back to the state of nature, his inquiries would clearly
have had a different result, and man would have been seen
to be subject to very few evils not of his own creation.
It has indeed cost us not a little trouble to make ourselves
as wretched as we are. When we consider, on the one
hand, the immense labours of mankind, the many sciences
brought to perfection, the arts invented, the powers em-
ployed, the deeps filled up, the mountains levelled, the
rocks shattered, the rivers made navigable, the tracts of
land cleared, the lakes emptied, the marshes drained, the
enormous structures erected on land, and the teeming
vessels that cover the sea ; and, on the other hand, estimate
with ever so little thought, the real advantages that have
accrued from all these works to mankind, we cannot help
being amazed at the vast disproportion there is between
these things, and deploring the infatuation of man, which,
to gratify his silly pride and vain self -admiration, induces
him eagerly to pursue all the miseries he is capable of
feeling, though beneficent nature had kindly placed them
out of his way.

That men are actually wirkefil j n "If^ ^T^H rn"^i^1P^
e xpenen ce ot ^i^ prgyi^g K#>y2n^ r^yiiKf ' K^ii^ ^^] ^h^

WMt ThW can have depravM him to sucH '&n extent,

except the changes that have happened in his constitution,
the advances he has made, and the knowledge he has
acquired? We may admire human society as much as we
please; it will be none the less true that it necessarily
1 See p. 185.
239

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240 The Origin of Inequality

leads men to hate each other in proportion as their interests
clashy and to do one another apparent services, while they
are really doing every imaginable mischief. What can be
thought of a relation, in which the interest of every
individual dictates rules directly opposite to those the
public reason dictates to the community in general — ^in
which every man finds his profit in the misfortunes of his
neighbour? There is not perhaps any man in a comfort-
able position who has not greedy heirs, and perhaps even
children, secretly wishing for his death; not a ship at
sea, of which the loss would not be good news to some
merchant or other ; not a house, which some debtor of bad
faith would not be glad to see reduced to ashes with all
the papers it contains ; not a nation which does not rejoice
at the disasters that befall its neighbours. Thus it is that
we find our advantage in the misfortunes of our fellow-
creatures, and that the loss of one man almost always
constitutes the prosperity of another. But it is still more
pernicious that public calamities are the objects of the
hopes and expectations of innumerable individuals. Some
desire sickness, some mortality, some war, and some
famine. I have seen men wicked enough to weep for
sorrow at the prospect of a plentiful season ; and the great I
and fatal fire of London, which cost so many unhappy
persons their lives or their fortunes, made the fortunes
of perhaps ten thousand others. I know that Montaigne j
censures Demades the Athenian for having caused to be '
punished a workman who, by selling his coffins veiy dear,
was a great gainer by the deaths of his fellow-citizens;
but, the reason alleged by Montaigne being that everybody
ought to be punished, my point is clearly confirmed by it.
Let us penetrate, therefore, the superficial appearances of *
benevolence, and survey what passes in the inmost recesses
of the heart. Let us reflect what must be the state of
things, when men are forced to caress and destroy one
another at the same time; when they are born enemies
by duty, and knaves by interest. It will perhaps be said
that society is so formed that every man gains by serving
the rest. That would be all very well, if he did not gain
still more by injuring them. There is no legitimate profit
so great, that it cannot be greatly exceeded by what may
be made illegitimately; we always gain more by hurting

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Appendix 241

our neighbours than by doing them. good. Nothing is
required but to know how to act with impunity; and to
this end the powerful employ all their strength, and the
weak all their cunning.

Savage man, when he has dined, is at peace with all
nature, and the friend of all his fellow-creatures. If a
dispute arises about a meal, he rarely comes to blows,
without having first compared the difficulty of conquering
his antagonist with the trouble of finding subsistence
elsewhere : and, as pride does not come in, it all ends in
a few blows; the victor eats, and the vanquished seeks
provision somewhere else, and all is at peace. The case
is quite different with man in the state of society, for
whom first necessaries have to be provided, and then super-
fluities; delicacies follow next, then immense wealth, then
subjects, and then slaves. He enjoys not a moment*s
relaxation ; and what is yet stranger, the less natural and
pressing his wants, the more headstrong are his passions,
and, still worse, the more he has it in his power to gratify
them; so that after a long course of prosperity, after
having swallowed up treasures and ruined multitudes, the
hero ends up by cutting every throat till he finds himself,
at last, sole master of the world. Such is in miniature ,.
the moral picture, if not of human life, at least of th^ '
secret pretensions of the heart of civilised man. ^

Compare without partiality the state of the citizen with
that of the savage, and trace out, if you can, how many
inlets the former has opened to pain and death, besides
those of his vices, his wants and his misfortunes. If you
reflect on the mental afflictions that prey on us, the violent
passions that waste and exhaust us, the excessive labour
with which the poor are burdened, the still more danger-
ous indolence to which the wealthy give themselves up,
so that the poor perish of want, and the rich of surfeit; if
you reflect but a moment on the heterogeneous mixtures
and pernicious seasonings of foods; the corrupt state in
which they are frequently eaten; on the adulteration of
medicines, the wiles of those who sell them, the mistakes
of those who administer them, and the poisonous vessels
in which they are prepared; on the epidemics bred by
foul air in consequence of great numbers of men being
crowded together, or those which are caused by our

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242 The Origin of Inequality

delicate way of living, by our passing from our houses into
the open air and back again, by the putting on or throwing
off our clothes with too little care, and by all the precau-
tions which sensuality has converted into necessary habits,
and the neglect of which sometimes costs us our life or
health; if you take into account the conflagrations and
earthquakes, which, devouring or overwhelming whole
cities, destroy the inhabitants by thousands; in a word, if
you add together all the dangers with which these causes
are always threatening us, you will see how dearly nature
makes us pay for the contempt with which we have treated
her lessons.

I shall not here repeat, what I have elsewhere said of
the calamities of war; but wish that those, who have
sufficient knowledge, were willing or bold enough to make
public the details of the villainies committed in armies by
the contractors for commissariat, and hospitals : we should
see plainly that their monstrous frauds, already none too
well concealed, which cripple the finest armies in less than
no time, occasion greater destruction among the soldiers
than the swords of the enemy.

The number of people who perish annually at sea, by
famine, the scurvy, pirates, fire and shipwrecks, affords
matter for another shocking calculation. We must also
place to the credit of the establishment of property, and
consequently to the institution of society, assassinations,
poisonings, highway robberies, and even the punishments
inflicted on the wretches guilty of these crimes ; which,
though expedient to prevent greater evils, yet by making
the murder of one man cost the lives of two or more,
double the loss to the human race.

What shameful methods are sometimes practised to
prevent the birth of men, and cheat nature; either by
brutal and depraved appetites which insult her most
beautiful work — appetites unknown to savages or mere
animals, which can spring only from the corrupt imagina-
tion of mankind in civilised countries; or by secret abor-
tions, the fitting effects of debauchery and vitiated notions
of honour ; or by the exposure or murder of multitudes of
infants, who fall victims to the poverty of their parents, or
the cruel shame of their mothers ; or, finally, by the mutila-
tion of unhappy wretches, part of whose life, with their

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Appendix 243

hope of posterity, is given up to vain singing, or, still
worse, the brutal jealousy of other men : a mutilation
which, in the last case, becomes a double outrage against
nature from the treatment of those who suffer it, and
from the use to which they are destined. But is it not a
thousand times more common and more dangerous for
paternal rights openly to offend against humanity? How
many talents have not been thrown away, and inclinations
forced, by the unwise constraint of fathers? How many
men, who would have distinguished themselves in a fitting
estate, have died dishonoured and wretched in another for
which they had no taste ! How many happy, but unequal,
marriages have been broken or disturbed, and how many
chaste wives have been dishonoured, by an order of things
continually in contradiction with that of nature ! How
many good and virtuous husbands and wives are recipro-
cally punished for having been ill-assorted ! How many
young and unhappy victims of their parents' avarice
plunge into vice, or pass their melancholy days in tears,
groaning in the indissoluble bonds which their hearts
repudiate and gold alone has formed ! Fortunate some-
times are those whose courage and virtue remove them
from life before inhuman violence makes them spend it in
crime or in despair. Forgive me, father and mother,
whom I shall ever regret : my complaint embitters your
griefs; but would they might be an eternal and terrible
example to every one who dares, in the name of nature^
to violate her most sacred right.

If I have spoken only of those ill-starred unions which
are the result of our system, is it to be thought that those
over which love and sympathy preside are free from
disadvantages? What if I should undertake to show
humanity attacked in its very source, and even in the most
sacred of all ties, in which fortune is consulted before
nature, and, the disorders of society confounding all
virtue and vice, continence becomes a criminal precaution,
and a refusal to give life to a fellow-creature, an act of
humanity? But, without drawing aside the veil which
hides all these horrors, let us content ourselves with
pointing out the evil which others will have to remedy.

To all this add the multiplicity of unhealthy trades,
which shorten men's lives or destroy their bodies, such

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244 The Origin of Inequality

as working in the mines, and the preparing of metals and
minerals, particularly lead, copper, mercury, cobalt, and
arsenic : add those other dangerous trades which are daily
fatal to many tilers, carpenters, masons and miners : put
all these together and we can see, in the establishment
and perfection of societies, the reasons for that diminu-
tion of our species, which has been noticed by many
philosophers.

Luxury, which cannot be prevented among men who are
tenacious of their own convenience and of the respect
paid them by others, soon completes the evil society had
begun, and, under the pretence of giving bread to the
poor, whom it should never have made such, impoverishes
all the rest, and sooner or later depopulates the State.
Luxury is a remedy much worse than the disease it sets
up to cure ; or rather it is in itself the greatest of all evils,
for every State, great or small : for, in order to maintain
all the servants and vagabonds it creates, it brings oppres-
sion and ruin on the citizen and the labourer; it is like
those scorching winds, which, covering the trees and plants
with devouring insects, deprive useful animals of their
subsistence and spread famine and death wherever they
blow.

From society and the luxury to which it gives birth
arise the liberal and mechanical arts, commerce, letters,
and all those superfluities which make industry flourish,
and enrich and ruin nations. The reason for such destruc-
tion is plain. It is easy to see, from the very nature of
agriculture, that it must be the least lucrative of all the
arts ; for, its produce being the most universally necessary,
the price must be proportionate to the abilities of the very
poorest of mankind.

From the same princif^e may be deduced this rule, that
the arts in general are more lucrative in proportion as
they are less useful; and that, in the end, the most useful
becomes the most neglected. From this we may learn
what to think of the real advantages of industry and the
actual effects of its progress.

Such are the sensible causes of all the miseries, into

which opulence at length plunges the most celebrated

nations. In proportion as arts and industry flourish, the

despised husbandman, burdened with the taxes necessary

t support of luxury, and condemned to pass his days

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Appendix 245

between labour and hunger, forsakes his native field, to
seek in towns the bread he ought to carry thither. The
more our capital cities strike the vulgar eye with admira-
tion, the greater reason is there to lament the sight of
the abandoned countryside, the large tracts of land that
lie uncultivated, the roads crowded with unfortunate
citizens turned beggars or highwaymen, and doomed to
end their wretched lives either on a dunghill or on the
gallows. Thus the State grows rich on the one hand,
and feeble and depopulated on the other; the mightiest
monarchies, after having taken immense pains to enrich
and depopulate themselves, fall at last a prey to some
poor nation, which has yielded to the fatal temptation of
invading them, and then, growing opulent and weak in
its turn, is itself invaded and ruined by some other.

Let any one inform us what produced the swarms of
barbarians, who overran Europe, Asia and Africa for so
many ages. Was their prodigious increase due to their
industry and arts, to the wisdom of their laws, or to the
excellence of their political system? Let the learned tell
us why, instead of multiplying to such a degree, these
fierce and brutal men, without sense or science, without
education, without restraint, did not destroy each other
hourly in quarrelling over the productions of their fields
and woods. Let them tell us how these wretches could
have the presumption to oppose such clever people as we
were, so well trained in military discipline, and possessed
of such excellent laws and institutions : and why, since
society has been brought to perfection in northern
countries, and so much pains taken to instruct their in-
habitants in their social duties and in the art of living
happily and peaceably together, we see them no longer pro-
duce such numberless hosts as they used once to send forth
to be the plague and terror of other nations. I fear some
one may at last answer me by saying, that all these fine
things, arts, sciences and laws, were wisely invented by
men, as a salutary plague, to prevent the too great
multiplication of mankind, lest the world, which was given
us for a habitation, should in time be too small for its
inhabitants.

What, then, is to be done? Must societies be totally
abolished? Must meum and tuum be annihilated, and
must we return aeain to the forests to live among h*»»-^

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,246 The Origin of Inequality

^This is a deduction in the manner of my adversaries,
^ which I would as soon anticipate as let them have the shame
^Ni^ of drawing. O you, who have never heard the voice of
^ I heaven, who think man destined only to live this little life
^-^ and die in peace ; you, who can resign in the midst of
^ T populous cities your fatal acquisitions, your restless spirits,
^ S you^ corrupt hearts and endless desires ; resum£|_£iji£:cLJt
i ^ depends entirely on yourselves, y^n r ^inrS^fiT^nri primttiiT
V ifln6fc ence : retire to tne woods,^^ere to lose the^ ^sight
-^--a nd-remembrance of th ^ mP***^^^ Y'^V'^ /-nnf^mpf>rairi^«^ ;
i ^ and be not apprehensive of degrading your species, by
V J renouncing its advances in order to renounce its vices.
^ As for m^ like me| whose passions have destroyed their
original simplicity, ^^h o can no longer subsist on plant s
or acorns, or live wit houT'laws ailtTTfTa^istrate^ those
wlSo^ere libnbureiSnn their lirsi lather wiin supernatural
instructions; those who discover, in the design of giving
human actions at the start a morality wHich they must
otherwise have been so long in acquiring, tl e reason for a
precept in itself indifferent and inexplicable >n every other
system ; those, in short, who are persuaded 1 bat the Divine
Being has called all mankind to be partaker; ; in the happi-
ness and perfection of celestial intelligencesj^^^djdiese. . jkIU

from the pr^ctigA-oi thossi,^.^dxXU6^

selves follow ia. leanuQg ,tp know them. Th<^ will respect
th~(^ 'saCted bonds of their '?e§pecl!ve coauiuiaitiefri ilicy
will love theiffellow-citizens, .and, >ficrve them with .nil their
mightj^tt^ obey the laws, and aU^those.

' ^(?ffo* maK^ pjf ..^djCQinister them ;< they "^H particularly
honour those wise and g68d"pl1fices, who find means of
preventing, curing or even palliatmg all these evils and
abuses, by which we are constantl\ threatened ; they will
animate the zeal of their deserving rulers, by shov^ing
them, without flattery or fear, the importance of their
office and the severity of their duty. N gut the y will not
tlifire£orfi.Jiavft less .gon temp t ^or a constitution ^ rtraS not
support Jtself withouFl lre^'gtd ^^ spt6n3id cKar-

••ac'^^S^mucli • uf t e ne i \^ rsheid for tliannF&iradl"*"amf'froni
which, notwithstanding all their pains and solicitude, there
always arise more real calamities than even apparent
advantages.

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A DISCOURSE ON
POLITICAL ECONOMY

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A DISCOURSE ON
POLITICAL ECONOMY

The word Economy, or CEconomy, is derived from'oLc^,
a house^ and vo/tos, law, and meant originally only the
wise and legitimate government of the house for the
common good of the whole family. The meaning of the
term was then extended to the government of that great
family, the State. To distinguish these two senses of the
word, the latter is called general or political economy, and
the former domestic or particular economy. The first only
is discussed in the present discourse.

Even if there were as close an analogy as many authors
maintain between the State and the family, it would not
follow that the rules of conduct proper for one of these
societies would be also proper for the other. They differ
too much in extent to be regulated in the same manner;
and there will always be a great difference between
domestic government, in which a father can see everything
for himself, and civil government, where the chief sees
hardly anything save through the eyes of others. To put
both on an equality in this respect, the talents, strength,
and all the faculties of the father would have to increase
in proportion to the size of his family, and the soul of a
powerful monarch would have to be, to that of an ordinary
man, as the extent of his empire is to that of a private
person's estate.

But how could the government of the State be like that
of the family, when the basis on which they rest is so
different?. The father being physically stronger than his
children, his paternal authority, as long as they need his
protection, may be reasonably said to be established by
nature. But in the great family, all the members of which
are naturally equal, the political authority, being purely
arbitrary as far as its institution is concerned, can be
founded only on conventions, and the Magistrate can have
no authority over the rest, except by virtue of the laws.

249

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250 A Discourse on Political Economy

The duties of a father are dictated to him by natural feel-
ings, and in a manner that seldom allows him to neglect
them. For rulers there is no such principle, and they are
really obliged to the people only by what they themselves
have promised to do, and the people have therefore a right
to require of them. Another more important difference is
that since the children have nothing but what they receive
from their father, it is plain that all the rights of property
belong to him, or emanate from him ; but quite the opposite
is the case in the great family, where the general adminis-
tration is established only to secure individual property,
which is antecedent to it. The principal object of the work
of the whole house is to preserve and increase the patri-
mony of the father, in order that he may be able some day
to distribute it among his children without impoverishing
them ; whereas the wealth of the exchequer is only a means,
often ill understood, of keeping the individuals in peace
and plenty. In a word, the little family is destined to be
extinguished, and to resolve itself some day into several
families of a similar nature; but the great family, being
constituted to endure for ever in the same condition, need
not, like the small one, increase for the purpose of multi-
plying, but need only maintain itself ; and it can easily be
proved that any increase does it more harm than good.

In the family, it is clear, for several reasons which lie
in its very nature, that the father ought to command. In
the first place, the authority ought not to be equally
divided between father and mother; the government must
be single, and in every division of opinion there must be
one preponderant voice to decide. Secondly, however
lightly we may regard the disadvantages peculiar to
wometi, yet, as they necessarily occasion intervals of
inaction, this is a sufficient reason for excluding them from
this supreme authority : for when the balance is perfectly
even, a straw is enough to turn the scale. Besides, the
husband ought to be able to superintend his wife's con-
duct, because it is of importance for him to be assured that
the children, whom he is obliged to acknowledge and main-
tain, belong to no-one but himself. Thirdly, children
should be obedient to their father, at first of necessity, and
afterwards from gratitude : after having had their wants
satisfied by him during one half of their lives, they ought

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A Discourse on Political Economy 251

to consecrate the other half to providing for his. Fourthly,
servants owe him their services in exchange for the pro-
vision he makes for them, though they may break off the
bargain as soon as it ceases to suit them. I say nothing
here of slavery, because it is contrary to nature, and cannot
be authorised by any right or law.

There is nothing of all this in political society, in which
the chief is so far from having any natural interest in the
happiness of the individuals, that it is not uncommon for
him to seek his own in their misery. If the magistracy is
hereditary, a community of men is often governed by a
child. If it be elective, innumerable inconveniences arise
from such election ; while in both cases all the advantages
of paternity are lost. If you have but a single ruler, you
lie at the discretion of a master who has no reason to love
you : and if you have several, you must bear at once their
tyranny and their divisions. In a word, abuses are inevit-
able and their consequences fatal in every society where
the public interest and the laws have no natural force, and
are perpetually attacked by personal interest and the pas-
sions of the ruler and the members.

Although the functions of the father of a family and
those of the chief magistrate ought to make for the same
object, the^ must do so in such different ways, and their
duty and rights are so essentially distinct, that we cannot
confound them without forming very false ideas about the
fundamental laws of society, and falling into errors which
are fatal to mankind. In fact, if the voice of nature is the
best counsellor to which a father can listen in the discharge
of his duty, for the Magistrate it is a false guide, which
continually prevents him from performing his, and leads
him on sooner or later to the ruin of himself and of the
State, if he is not restrained by the most sublime virtue.
The only precaution necessary for the father of a family is
to guard himself against depravity, and prevent his natural
inclinations from being corrupted; whereas it is these
themselves which corrupt the Magistrate. In order to act
aright, the first has only to consult his heart; the other
becomes a traitor the moment he listens to his. Even his
own reason should be suspect to him, nor should he follow
any rule other than the public reason, which is the law.
Thus nature has made a multitude of good fathers of

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252 A Discourse on Political Economy

families ; but it is doubtful whether, from the very begin-
ning of the world, human wisdom has made ten men
capable of governing their peers.

From all that has just been said, it follows that public
economy, which is my subject, has been rightly distin-
guished from private economy, and that, the State
having nothing in common with the family except the
obligations which their heads lie under of making both
of them happy, the same rules of conduct cannot apply
to both. I have considered these few lines enough to
overthrow the detestable system which Sir Robert Filmer
has endeavoured to establish in his Patriarcha; a work to
which two celebrated writers have done too much honour
in writing books to refute it. Moreover, this error is of
very long standing; for Aristotle himself thought proper
to combat it with arguments which may be found in the
first book of his Politics.

I must here ask my readers to distinguish also between
public economy^ which is my subject and which I call
government, and the supreme authority, which I call
Sovereignty ; sl distinction which consists in the fact that
the latter has the right of legislation, and in certain cases
binds the body of the nation itself, while the former has only
the right of execution, and is binding only on individuals.

I shall take the liberty of making use of a very common,
and in some respects inaccurate, comparison, which will
serve to illustrate my meaning.

The body politic, taken individually, may be considered
as an organised, living body, resembling that of man.
The sovereign power represents the head; the laws and
customs are the brain, the source of the nerves and seat
of the understanding, will and senses, of which the Judges
and Magistrates are the organs : commerce, industry, and
agriculture are the mouth and stomach which prepare the
common subsistence ; the public income is the blood, which
a prudent economy, in performing the functions of the
heart, causes to distribute through the whole body nutri-
ment and life : the citizens are the body and the members,
which make the machine live, move and work; and no
part of this machine can be damaged without the painful
impression being at once conveyed to the brain, if the
animal is in a state of health.

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A Discourse on Political Economy 253

The life of both bodies is the self common to the whole,
the reciprocal sensibility and internal correspondence of
all the parts. Where this communication ceases, where
the formal unity disappears, and the contiguous parts
belong to one another only by juxtaposition, the man is
dead, or the State is dissolved.

The body politic, therefore, is also a moral being pos-
sessed of a will ; and this general will, which tends always
to the preservation and welfare of the whole and of every
part, and is the source of the laws, constitutes for all the
members of the State, in their relations to one another
and to it, the rule of what is just or unjust : a truth which
shows, by the way, how idly some writers have treated
as theft the subtlety prescribed to children at Sparta for
obtaining their frugal repasts, as if everything ordained
by the law were not lawful.

It is important to observe that this rule of justice, though
certain with regard to all citizens, may be defective with
regard to foreigners. The reason is clear. The will of
the State, though general in relation to its own members,
is no longer so in relation to other States and their
members, but becomes, for them, a particular and indi-
vidual will, which has its rule of justice in the law of
nature. This, however, enters equally into the principle
here laid down; for in such a case, the great city of the
world becomes the body politic, whose general will is
always the law of nature, and of which the different States
and peoples are individual members. From these distinc-
tions, applied to each political society and its members, are
derived the most certain and universal rules, by which we
can judge whether a government is good or bad, and in
general of the morality of all human actions.

Every political society is composed of other smaller
societies of different kinds, each of which has its interests
and its rules of conduct : but those societies which every-
body perceives, because they have an external and author-
ised form, are not the only ones that actually exist in the
State : all individuals who are united by a common interest
compose as many others, either transitory or permanent,
whose influence is none the less real because it is less
apparent, and the proper observation of whose various
relations is the true knowledge of public morals and

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254 A Discourse on Political Economy

manners. The influence of all these tacit or formal
associations causes, by the influence of their will, as many
different modifications of the public will. The will of
these particular societies has always two relations ; for the
members of the association, it is a general will; for the
great society, it is a particular will; and it is often right
with regard to the first object, and wrong as to the second.
An individual may be a devout priest, a brave soldier, or
a zealous senator, and yet a bad citizen. A particular
resolution may be advantageous to the smaller community,
but pernicious to the greater. It is true that particular
societies being always subordinate to the general societ)'
in preference to others, the duty of a citizen takes prece-
dence of that of a senator, and a man's duty of that of a
citizen : but unhappily personal interest is always found
in inverse ratio to duty, and increases in proportion' as the
association grows narrower, and the engagement less
sacred; which irrefragably proves that the most general
will is always the must just also, and that the voice of
the people is in fact the voice of God.

It does not follow that the public decisions are always
equitable; they may possibly, for reasons which I have
given, not be so when they have to do with foreigners.
Thus it is not impossible that a Republic, though in itself j
well governed, should enter upon an unjust war. Nor is
it less possible for the Council of a Democracy to pass
unjust decrees, and condemn the innocent; but this never
happens unless the people is seduced by private interests,
which the credit or eloquence of some clever persons
substitutes for those of the State; in which case the
general will will be one thing, and the result of the public
deliberation another. This is not contradicted by the case *
of the Athenian Democracy ; for Athens was in fact not a
Democracy, but a very tyrannical Aristocracy, governed
by philosophers and orators. Carefully determine what
happens in every public deliberation, and it will be seen
that the general will is always for the common good ; but
very often there is a secret division, a tacit confederacy,
which, for particular ends, causes the natural disposition
of the assembly to be set at nought. In such a case the
body of society is really divided into other bodies, the
members of which acquire a general will, which is good

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A Discourse on Political Economy 255

and just with respect to these new bodies, but unjust and
bad with regard to the whole, from which each is thus
dismembered.

We see then how easy it is, by the help of these prin-
ciples, to explain those apparent contradictions, which are
noticed in the conduct of many persons who are scrupu-
lously honest in some respects, and cheats and scoundrels
in others, who trample under foot the most sacred duties,
and yet are faithful to the death to engagements that are
often illegitimate. Thus the most depraved of men always
pay some sort of homage to public faith ; and even robbers,
who are tJie enemies of virtue in the great society, pay
some respect to the shadow of it in their secret caves.

In establishing the general will as the first principle of
public economy, and the fundamental rule of government,
I have not thought it necessary to inquire seriously whether
the Magistrates belong to the people, or the people to the
Magistrates; or whether in public affairs the good of the
State should be taken into account, or only that of its
rulers. That question indeed has long been decided one
way in theory, and another in practice; and in general it
would be ridiculous to expect that those who are in fact
masters will prefer any other interest to their own. It
would not be improper, therefore, further to distinguish
public economy as popular or tyrannical. The former is
that of every State, in which there reigns between the
people and the rulers unity of interest and will : the latter
will necessarily exist wherever the government and the
people have different interests, and, consequently, opposing
wills. The rules of the latter are written at length in the
archives of history, and in the satires of Macchiavelli.
The rules of the former are found only in the writings of
those philosophers who venture to proclaim the rights of
humanity.

I. The first and most important rule of legitimate or
popular government, that is to say, of government whose
object is the good of the people, is therefore, as I have
observed, to follow in everything the general will. But to
follow this will it is necessary to know it, and above all to
distinguish it from the particular will, beginning with one's
self: this distinction is always very difficult to make, and
only the most sublime virtue can afford sufficient illumina-

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256 A Discourse on Political Economy

tion for it. As, in order to will, it is necessary to be free,
a difficulty no less great than the former arises — that of
preserving at once the public liberty and the authority of
government. Look into the motives which have induced
men, once united by their common needs in a general
society, to unite themselves still more intimately by means
of civil societies : you will find no other motive than that
of assuring the property, life and liberty of each member
by the protection of all. But can men be forced to defend
the liberty of any one among them, without trespassing
on that of others? And how can they provide for the
public needs, without alienating the individual property of
those who are forced to contribute to them? With what-
ever sophistry all this may be covered over, it is certain
that if any constraint can be laid on my will, I ami no
longer free, and that I am no longer master of my own
property, if any one else can lay a hand on it. This diffi-
culty, which would have seemed insurmountable, has been
removed, like the first, by the most sublime of all human
institutions, or rather by a divine inspiration, which
teaches mankind to imitate here below the unchangeable
decrees of the Deity. By what inconceivable art has a
means been found of making men free by making them
subject; of using in the service of the State the pro-
perties, the persons and even the lives of all its members,
without constraining and without consulting them; of
confining their will by their own admission ; of overcoming
their refusal by that consent, and forcing them to punish
themselves, when they act against their own will? How
can it be that all should obey, yet nobody take upon him
to command, and that all should serve, and yet have no
masters, but be the more free, as, in apparent subjection, 1
each loses no part of his liberty but what might be hurtful j
to that of another? These wonders are the work of law. '
It is to law alone that men owe justice and liberty. It is
this salutary organ of the will of all which establishes, in
civil right, the natural equality between men. It is this j
celestial voice which dictates to each citizen the precepts
of public reason, and teaches him to act according to the
rules of his own judgment, and not to behave inconsist-
ently with himself. It is with this voice alone that political
rulers should speak when they command; for no sooner

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does one man, setting aside the law, claim to subject
another to his private will, than he departs from the state
of civil society, and confronts him face to face in the pure
state of nature, in which obedience is prescribed solely
by necessity.

The most pressing interest of the ruler, and even his
most indispensable duty, therefore, is to watch over the
observation of the laws of which he is the minister, and
on which his whole authority is founded. At the same
time, if he exacts the observance of them from others, he
is the more strongly bound to observe them himself, since
he enjoys all their favour. For his example is of suck
force, that even if the people were willing to permit him
to release himself from the yoke of the law, he ought to
be cautious in availing himself of so dangerous a pre-
rogative, which others might soon claim to usurp in
their turn, and often use to his prejudice. At bottom, as
all social engagements are mutual in nature, it is impos-
sible for any one to set himself above the law, without
renouncing its advantages; for nobody is bound by any
obligation to one who claims that he is under no obliga-
tions to others. For this reason no exemption from the
law will ever be granted, on any ground whatsoever, in
a well-regulated government. Those citizens who have
deserved well of their country ought to be rewarded with
honours, but never with privileges : for the Republic is at
the eve of its fall, when any one can think it fine not to
obey the laws. If the nobility or the soldiery should ever
adopt such a maxim, all would be lost beyond redemption.

Tlie power of the laws depends still more on their own
wisdom than on the severity of their administrators, and
the public will derives its greatest weight from the reason
which has dictated it. Hence Plato looked upon it as a
very necessary precaution to place at the head of all edicts
a preamble, setting forth their justice and utility. In fact,
the first of all laws is to respect the laws : the severity
of penalties is only a vain resource, invented by little
minds in order to substitute terror for that respect which
they have no means of obtaining. It has constantly been
observed that in those countries where legal punishments
are most severe, they are also most frequent; so that the
cruelty of such punishments is a proof only of the multi-

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tude of criminals, and, punishing everything" with equal
severity, induces those who are guilty to commit crimes,
in order to escape being punished for their faults.

But though the government be not master of the law, it
is much to be its guarantor, and to possess a thousand
means of inspiring the love of it. In Uiis alone the talent
of reigning consists. With force in one's hands, there is
no art required to make the whole world tremble, nor
indeed much to gain men's hearts; for experience has
long since taught the people to give its rulers great
credit for all the evil they abstain from doing it, and to
adore them if they do not absolutely hate it. A fool, if he
be obeyed, may punish crimes as well as another : but the
true statesman is he who knows how to prevent them :
it is over the wills, even more than the actions, of his
subjects that his honourable rule is extended. If he
could secure that every one should act aright, he would
no longer have anything to do; and the masterpiece of his
labours would be to be able to remain unemployed. It is
certain, at least, that the greatest talent a ruler can
possess is to disguise his power, in order to render it less
odious, and to conduct the State so peaceably as to make
it seem to have no need of conductors.

I conclude, therefore, that, as the first duty of the
legislator is to make the laws conformable to the general
will, the first rule of public economy is that the adminis-
tration of justice should be conformable to the laws. It
will even be enough to prevent the State from being ill
governed, that the Legislator shall have provided, as he
should, for every need of place, climate, soil, custom,
neighbourhood, and all the rest of the relations peculiar
to the people he had to institute. Not but what there still i
remains an infinity of details of administration and eco-
nomy, which are left to the wisdom of the government :
but there are two infallible rules for its good conduct on
these occasions; one is, that the spirit of the law ought
to. decide in every particular case that could not be fore-
seen; the other is that the general will, the source and
supplement of all laws, should be consulted wherever they
fail. But how, I shall be asked, can the general will be
known in cases in which it has not expressed itself ? Must
the whole nation be assembled together at every unforeseen

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event? Certainly not. It ought the less to be assembled,
because it is by no means certain that its decision would
be the expression of the general will ; besides, the method
would be impracticable in a great people, and is hardly
ever necessary where the government is well-intentioned :
for the rulers well know that the general will is always on
the side which is most favourable to the public interest,
that is to say, most equitable; so that it is needful only
to act justly, to be certain of following the general will.
When this is flouted too openly, it makes itself felt, in
spite of the formidable restraint of the public authority. I
shall cite the nearest possible examples that may be
followed in such cases.

In China, it is the constant maxim of the Prince to
decide against his officers, in every dispute that arises
between them and the people. If bread be too dear in any
province, the Intendant of that province is thrown into
prison. If there be an insurrection in another, the
Governor is dismissed, and every Mandarin answers with
his head for all the mischief that happens in his depart-
ment. Not that these affairs do not subsequently undergo
a regular examination ; but long experience has caused the
judgment to be thus anticipated. There is seldom any
injustice to be repaired; in the meantime, the Emperor,
being satisfied that public outcry does not arise without
cause, always discovers, through the seditious clamours
which he punishes, just grievances to redress.

It is a great thing to preserve the rule of peace and
order through all the parts of the Republic; it is a great
thing that the State should be tranquil, and the law
respected : but if nothing more is done, there will be in
all this more appearance than reality; for that govern-
ment which confines itself to mere obedience will find
difficulty in getting itself obeyed. If it is good to know
how to deal with men as they are, it is much better to
make them what there is need that they should be. The
most absolute authority is that which penetrates into a
man's inmost being, and concerns itself no less with his
will than with his actions. It is certain that all peoples
become in the long run what the government makes
them; warriors, citizens, men, when it so pleases; or
merely populace and rabble, when it chooses to make

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them so. Hence every prince who despises his subjects,
dishonours himself, in confessing that he does not know
how to make them worthy of respect. Make men, there-
fore, if you would command men : if you would have them
obedient to the laws, make them love the laws, and then
they will need only to know what is their duty to do it.
This was the great art of ancient governments, in those
distant times when philosophers gave laws to men, and
made use of their authority only to render them wise
and happy. Thence arose the numerous sumptuary laws,
the many regulations of morals, and all the public rules
of conduct which were admitted or rejected with the great-
est care. Even tyrants did not forget this important part
of administration, but took as great pains to corrupt
the morals of their slaves, as Magistrates took to correct
those of their fellow-citizens. But our modern govern-
ments, which imagine they have done everything when
they have raised money, conceive that it is unnecessary
and even impossible to go a step further.

II. The second essential rule of public economy is no
less important than the first. If you would have the
general will accomplished, bring all the particular wills
into conformity with it; in other words, as virtue is
nothing more than this conformity of the particular wills
with the general will, establish the reign of virtue.

If our politicians were less blinded by their ambition,
they would see how impossible it is for any establishment
whatever to act in the spirit of its institution, unless it
is guided in accordance with the law of duty; they would
feel that the greatest support of public authority lies in
the hearts of the citizens, and that nothing can take the
place of morality in the maintenance of government. It is ^
not only upright men who know how to administer the
laws; but at bottom only good men know how to obey
them. The man who once gets the better of remorse, will
not shrink before punishments which are less severe, and
less lasting, and from which there is at least the hope of
escaping : whatever precautions are taken, those who only
require impunity in order to do wrong will not fail to find
means of eluding the law, and avoiding its penalties. In
this case, as all particular interests unite against the ,
general interest, which is no longer that of any individual,

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public vices have a greater effect in enervating the laws
than the laws in the repression of such vices : so that the
corruption of the people and of their rulers will at length
extend to the government, however wise it may be. The
worst of all abuses is to pay an apparent obedience to the
laws, only in order actually to break them with security.
For in this case the best laws soon become the most per-
nicious ; and it would be a hundred times better that they
should not exist. In such a situation, it is vain to add
edicts to edicts and regulations to regulations. Every-
thing serves only to introduce new abuses, without correct-
ing the old. The more laws are multiplied, the more they
are despised, and all the new officials appointed to super-
vise them are. only so many more people to break them,
and either to share the plunder with their predecessors, or
to plunder apart on their own. The reward of virtue soon
becomes that of robbery'; the vilest of men rise to the
greatest credit; the greater they are the more despicable
they become ; their infamy appears even in their dignities,
and their very honours dishonour them. If they buy
the influence of the leaders or the protection of women,
it is only that they may sell justice, duty, and the State
in their turn : in the meantime, the people, feeling that
its vices are not the first cause of its misfortunes,
murmurs and complains that all its misfortunes come
solely from those whom it pays to protect it from such
things.

It is under these circumstances that the voice of duty no
longer speaks in men's hearts, and their rulers are obliged
to substitute the cry of terror, or the lure of an apparent
interest, of which they subsequently trick their creatures.
In this situation they are compelled to have recourse to all
the petty and despicable shifts which they call rules of
State and mysteries of the cabinet. All the vigour that
is left in the government is used by its members in
ruining and supplanting one another, while the public busi-
ness is neglected, or is transacted only as personal interest
requires and directs. In short, the whole art of those
great politicians lies in so mesmerising those they stand
in need of, that each may think he is labouring for his
own interest in working for theirs : I say theirs on the
false supposition that it is the real interest of rulers to

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annihilate a people in order to make it subject, and to
ruin their own property in order to secure their possession
of it.

But when the citizens love their duty, and the guardians
of the public authority sincerely apply themselves to the
fostering of that love by their own example and assiduity,
every difficulty vanishes; and government becomes so
easy that it needs none of that art of darkness, whose
blackness is its only mystery. Those enterprising spirits,
so dangerous and so much admired, all those great minis-
ters, whose glory is inseparable from the miseries of the
people, are no longer regretted: public morality supplies
what is wanting in the genius of the rulers ; and the more
virtue reigns, the less need there is for talent. Even
ambition is better served by duty than by usurpation :
when the people is convinced that its rulers are labouring
only for its happiness, its deference saves them the trouble
of labouring to strengthen their power : and history shows
us, in a thousand cases, that the authority of one who
is beloved over those whom he loves is a hundred times
more absolute than all the tyranny of usurpers. This does
not mean that the government ought to be afraid to make
use of its power, but that it ought to make use of it only
in a lawful manner. We find in history a thousand
examples of pusillanimous or ambitious rulers, who were
ruined by their slackness or their pride; not one who suf-
fered for having been strictly just. But we ought not
to confound negligence with moderation, or clemency with
weakness. To be just, it is necessary to be severe; to
permit vice, when one has the right and the power to
suppress it, is to be oneself vicious.

It is not enough to say to the citizens, he good; they
must be taught to be so ; and even example, which is in this
respect the first lesson, is not the sole means to be em-
ployed ; patriotism is the most efficacious : for, as I have
said already, every man is virtuous when his particular
will is in all things conformable to the general will, and we
voluntarily will what is willed by those whom we love. It
appears that the feeling of humanity evaporates and grows
feeble in embracing all mankind, and that we cannot be
affected by the calamities of Tartary or Japan, in the same
manner as we are by those of European nations. It is
neressary in some degree to confine and limit our interest

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and compassion in order to make it active. Now, as this
sentiment can be useful only to those with whom we have
to live, it is proper that our humanity should confine itself
to our fellow-citizens, and should receive a new force
because we are in the habit of seeing them, and by reason
of the common interest which unites them. It is certain
that the greatest miracles of virtue have been produced by
patriotism : this fine and lively feeling, which gives to the
force of self-love all the beauty of virtue, lends it an
energy which, without disfiguring it, makes it the most
heroic of all passions. This it is that produces so many
immortal actions, the glory of which dazzles our feeble
eyes; and so many great men, whose old-world virtues
pass for fables now that patriotism is made mock of.
This is not surprising ; the transports of susceptible hearts
appear altogether fanciful to any one who has never felt
them; and the love of one's country, which is a hundred
times more lively and delightful than the love of a mis-
tress, cannot be coniceived except by experiencing it. But
it is easy to perceive in every heart that is warmed by it,
in all the actions it inspires, a glowing and sublime ardour
which does not attend the purest virtue, when separated
from it. Contrast Socrates even with Cato; the one was
the greater philosopher, the other more of the citizen.
Athens was already ruined in the time of Socrates, and he
had no other country than the world at large. Cato had
the cause of his country always at heart; he lived for it
alone, and could not bear to outlive it. The virtue of
Socrates was that of the wisest of men; but, compared
with Caesar and Pompey, Cato seems a God among
mortals. Socrates instructed a few individuals, opposed
the Sophists, and died for truth : but Cato defended his
country, its liberty and its laws, against the conquerors
of the world, and at length departed from the earth, when
he had no longer a country to serve. A worthy pupil of
Socrates would be the most virtuous of his contemporaries ;
but a worthy follower of Cato would be one of the greatest.
The virtue of the former would be his happiness; the
latter would seek his happiness in that of all. We should
be taught by the one, and led by the other ; and this alone
is enough to determine which to prefer : for no people has
ever been made into a nation of philosophers, but it is not-
impossible to make a people happy. ^

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Do we wish men to be virtuous? Then let us begin
by making them love their country : but how can they
love it, if their country be nothing more to them than
to strangers, and afford them nothing but what it can
refuse nobody? It would be still worse, if they did not
enjoy even the privilege of social security, and if their
lives, liberties and property lay at the mercy of persons
in power, without their being permitted, or it being
possible for them, to get relief from the laws. For in
that case, being subjected to the duties of the state of
civil society, without enjoying even the common privileges
of the state of nature, and without being able to use their
strength in their own defence, they would be in the worst
condition in which freemen could possibly find themselves,
and the word country would mean for them something
merely odious and ridiculous. It must not be imagined
that a man can break or lose an arm, without the pain
being conveyed to his head : nor is it any more credible that
the general will should consent that any one member of
the State, whoever he might be, should wound or destroy
another, than it is that the fingers of a man in his senses
should wilfully scratch his eyes out. The security of indi-
viduals is so intimately connected with the public con-
federation that, apart from the regard that must be paid
to human weakness, that convention would in point of right
be dissolved, if in the State a single citizen who might
have been relieved were allowed to perish, or if one were
wrongfully confined in prison, or if in one case an obviously
unjust sentence were given. For the fundamental con-
ventions being broken, it is impossible to conceive of any
right or interest that could retain the people in the social
union; unless they were restrained by force, which alone
causes the dissolution of the state of civil society.

In fact, does not the undertaking entered into by the
whole body of the nation bind it to provide for the security
of the least of its members with as much care as for that
of all the rest? Is the welfare of a single citizen any less
the common cause than that of the whole State? It may
be said that it is good that one should perish for all. I
am ready to admire such a saying when it comes from the
lips of a virtuous and worthy patriot, voluntarily and
dutifully sacrificing himself for the good of his country :

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but if we are to understand by it, that it is lawful for the
g'overnment to sacrifice an innocent man for the good of
the multitude, I look upon it as one of the most execrable
rules tyranny ever invented, the greatest falsehood that
can be advanced, the most dangeroys admission that can
be made, and a direct contradiction of the fundamental
laws of society. So little is it the case that any one person
ought to perish for all, that all have pledged their lives
and properties for the defence of each, in order that the
weakness of individuals may always be protected by the
strength of the public, and each member by the whole
State. Suppose we take from the whole people one indi-
vidual after another, and then press the advocates of this
rule to explain more exactly what they mean by the body
of the State, and we shall see that it will at length be
reduced to a small number of persons, who are not the
people, but the officers of the people, and who, having
bound themselves by personal oath to perish for the welfare
of the people, would thence infer that the people is to
perish for their own.

Need we look for examples of the protection which
the State owes to its members, and the respect it owes to
their persons? It is only among the most illustrious
and courageous nations that they are to be found; it is
only among free peoples that the dignity of man is
realised. It is well known into what perplexity the whole
republic of Sparta was thrown, when the question of
punishing a guilty citizen arose.

In Macedon, the life of a man was a matter of such
importance, that Alexander the Great, at the height of his
glory, would not have dared to put a Macedonian criminal
to death in cold blood, till the accused had appeared to
make his defence before his fellow-citizens, and had been
condemned by them. But the Romans distinguished them-
selves above all other peoples by the regard which their
government paid to the individual, and by its scrupulous
attention to the preservation of the inviolable rights of all
the members of the State. Nothing was so sacred
among them as the life of a citizen; and no less than an
assembly of the whole people was needed to condemn one.
Not even the Senate, nor the Consuls, in all their majesty,
possessed the right ; but the crime and punishment of a .

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citizen were regarded as a public calamity among the most
powerful people in the world. So hard indeed did it seem
to shed blood for any crime whatsoever, that by the Lex
Porcia, the penalty of death was commuted into that of
banishment for all those who were willing to survive the
loss of so great a country. Everything both at Rome, and
in the Roman armies, breathed that love of fellow-citizens
one for another, and that respect for the Roman name,
which raised the courage and inspired the virtue of every
one who had the honour to bear it. The cap of a citizen
delivered from slavery, the civic crown of him who had
saved the life of another, were looked upon with the
greatest pleasure amid the pomp oi their triumphs; and
it is remarkable that amon^ the crowns which were
bestowed in honour of splendid actions in war, the civic
crown and that of the triumphant general alone were of
laurel, all the others being merely of gold. It was thus
that Rome was virtuous and became tiie mistress of the
world. Ambitious rulers ! A herdsman governs his dogs
and cattie, and yet is only the meanest of mankind. If it
be a fine thing to command, it is when those who obey
us are capable of doing us honour. Show respect, there-
fore, to your fellow-citizens, and you will render yourselves
worthy of respect ; show respect to liberty, and your power
win increase daily. Never exceed your rights, and they
will soon become unlimited.

Let our country then show itself the common mother of
her citizens ; let tiie advantages they enjoy in their country
endear it to them; let the government leave them enough
share in the public administration to make them feel that
they are at home; and let the laws be in their eyes only
the guarantees of the common liberty. These rights,
great as they are, belong to all men : but without seeming
to attack them (iUrectiy, the ill-will of rulers may in fact
easily reduce their effect to nothing. The law, which they
thus abuse, serves the powerful at once as a weapon of
offence, and as a shield against the weak ; and the pretext
of the public good is always the most dangerous scourge
of the people. What is most necessary, and perhaps
most difficult, in government, is rigid integrity in doing
strict justice to all, and above all in protecting the poor
against the tyranny of the rich. The greatest evil has

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already come about, when there are poor men to be de-
fended, and rich men to be restrained. It is on the middle
classes alone that the whole force of the law is exerted;
they are equally powerless against the treasures of the rich
and the penury of the poor. The first mocks them, the
second escapes them. The one breaks the meshes, the
other passes through them.

It is therefore one of the most important functions of
government to prevent extreme inequality of fortunes ; not
by taking away wealth from its possessors, but by
depriving all men of means to accumulate it; not by
building hospitals for the poor, but by securing the
citizens from becoming poor. The unequal distribution of
inhabitants over the territory, when men are crowded
together in one place, while other places are depopulated ;
the encouragement of the arts that minister to luxury and
of purely industrial arts at the expense of useful and
laborious crafts ; the sacrifice of agriculture to commerce ;
the necessitation of the tax-farmer by the mal-administra-
tion of the funds of the State; and in short, venality
pushed to such an extreme that even public esteem is
reckoned at a cash value, and virtue rated at a market
price : these are the most obvious causes of opulence and
of poverty, of public interest, of mutual hatred among
citizens, of indifference to the common cause, of the
corruption of the people, and of the weakening of all the
springs of government. Such are the evils, which are
with difficulty cured when they make themsehres felt, but
which a wise administration ought to prevent, if it is to
maintain, along with good morals, respect for the laws,
patriotism, and the influence of the general will.

But all these precautions will be inadequate, unless
rulers go still more to the root of the matter. I conclude
this part of public economy where I ought to have begun
it. There can be no patriotism without liberty, no liberty
without virtue, no virtue without citizens ; create citizens,
and you have everything you need ; without them, you will
have nothing but debased slaves, from the rulers of the
State downwards. To form citizens is not the work of a
day; and in order to have men it is necessary to educate
them when they are children. It will be said, perhaps,
that whoever has men to govern, ought not to seek, beyond

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their nature, a perfection of which they are incapable;
that he ought not to desire to destroy their passions ; and
that the execution of such an attempt is no more desirable
than it is possible. I will agree, further, that a man
without passions would certainly be a bad citizen; but it
must be agreed also that, if men are not taught not to love
some things, it is impossible to teach them to love one
object more than another — ^to prefer that which is truly
beautiful to that which is deformed. If, for example, they
were early accustomed to regard their individuality only
in its relation to the body of the State, and to be aware,
so to speak, of their own existence merely as a part of
that of the State, they might at length come to identify
themselves in some degree with this greater whole, to feel
themselves members of their country, and to love it with
that exquisite feeling which no isolated person has save for
himself; to lift up their spirits perpetually to this great
object, and thus to transform into a sublime virtue that
dangerous disposition which gives rise to all our vices.
Not only does philosophy demonstrate the possibility of
giving feeling these new directions; history furnishes us
with a thousand striking examples. If they are so rare
among us moderns, it is because nobody troubles himself
whether citizens exist or not, and still less does anybody
think of attending to the matter soon enough to make them.
It is too late to change our natural inclinations, when they
have taken their course, and egoism is confirmed by habit :
it is too late to lead us out of ourselves when once the
human Ego, concentrated in our hearts, has acquired that
contemptible activity which absorbs all virtue and consti-
tutes the life and being of little minds. How can
patriotism germinate in the midst of so many other-
passions which smother it? And what can remain, for
fellow-citizens, of a heart already divided between avarice,
a mistress, and vanity?

From the first moment of life, men ought to begin
learning to deserve to live; and, as at the instant of birth
we partake of the rights of citizenship, that instant ought to
be the beginning of the exercise of our duty. If there are
laws for the age of maturity, there ought to be laws for
infancy, teaching obedience to others : and as the reason
of each man is not left to be the sole arbiter of his duties,

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government ought the less indiscriminately to abandon
to the intelligence and prejudices of fathers the education
of their children, as that education is of still greater
importance to the State than to the fathers : for, according
to the course of nature, the death of the father often
deprives him of the final fruits of education; but his
country sooner or later perceives its effects. Families
dissolve, but the State remains.

Should the public authority, by taking the place of the
father, and charging itself with that important function,
acquire his rights by discharging his duties, he would have
the less cause to complain, as he would only be changing
his title, and would have in common, under the name of
citizen, the same authority over his children, as he was
exercising separately under the name of father, and would
not be less obeyed when speaking in the name of the law,
than when he spoke in that of nature. Public education,
therefore, under regulations prescribed by the government,
and under magistrates established by the Sovereign, is
one of the fundamental rules of popular or legitimate
government. If children are brought up in common in the
bosom of equality; if they are imbued with the laws of
the State and the precepts of the general will; if they are
taught to respect these above all things; if they are
surrounded by examples and objects which constantly
remind them of the tender mother who nourishes them,
of the love she bears them, of the inestimable benefits
they receive from her, and of the return they owe her, we
cannot doubt that they will learn to cherish one another
mutually as brothers, to will nothing contrary to the
will of society, to substitute the actions of men and citizens
for the futile and vain babbling of sophists, and to become
in time defenders and fathers of the country of which
they will have been so long the children.

I shall say nothing of the Magistrates destined to
preside over such an education, which is certainly the most
important business of the State. It is easy to see that if
such marks of public confidence were conferred on slight
grounds, if this sublime function were not, for those who
have worthily discharged all other offices, the reward of
labour, the pleasant and honourable repose of old age,
and the crown of all honours, the whole enterprise would

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be useless and the education void of success. For where-
ever the lesson is not supported by authority, and the
precept by example, aU instruction is fruitless ; and virtue
itself loses its credit in the mouth of one who does not
practise it. But let illustrious warriors, bent under the
weight of their laurels, preach courage: let upright
Magistrates, grown white in the purple and on the bench
teach justice. Such teachers as these would thus get them-
selves virtuous successors, and transmit from age to ag^e,
to generations to come, the experience and talents of
rulers, the courage and virtue of citizens, and common
'emulation in all to live and die for their country.

I know of but three peoples which once practised public
education, the Cretans, the Lacedemonians, and the
ancient Persians : among all these it was attended with
the greatest success, and indeed it did wonders among
the two last. Since the world has been divided into
nations too great to admit of being well governed, this
method has been no longer practicable, and the reader
will readily perceive other reasons why such a thing has
never been attempted by any modern people. It is very
remarkable that the Romans were able to dispense with it ;
but Rome was for five hundred years one continued
miracle which the world cannot hope to see again. The
virtue of the Romans, engendered by their horror of
tyranny and the crimes of tyrants, and by an innate
patriotism, made all their houses so many schools of
citizenship; while the unlimited power of fathers over
their children made the individual authority so rigid that
the father was more feared than the Magistrate, and was
in his family tribunal both censor of morals and avenger
of the laws.

Thus a careful and well-intentioned government, vigilant
incessantly to maintain or restore patriotism and morality
among the people, provides beforehand against the evils
which sooner or later result from the indifference of the
citizens to the fate of the Republic, keeping within narrow
bounds that personal interest which so isolates the indivi-
dual that the State is enfeebled by his power, and has
nothing to hope from his good- will. Wherever men love
their country, respect the laws, and live simply, little
remains to be done in order to make them happy ; and in

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public administration, where chance has less influence than
in the lot of individuals, wisdom is so nearly allied to
happiness, that the two objects are confounded.

III. It is not enough to have citizens and to protect
them, it is also necessary to consider their subsistence.
Provision for the public wants is an obvious inference from
the general will, and the third essential duty of govern-
ment. This duty is not, we should feel, to fill the granaries
of individuals and thereby to grant them a dispensation
from labour, but to keep plenty so within their reach that
labour is always necessary and never useless for its
acquisition. It extends also to ev.erything regarding the
management of the exchequer, and the expenses of public
administration. Having thus treated of general economy
with reference to the government of persons, we must now
consider it with reference to the administration of property.

This part presents no fewer difficulties to solve, and
contradictions to remove, than the preceding. It is
certain that the right of property is the most sacred of all
the rights of citizenship, and even more important in some
respects than liberty itself; either because it more nearly
affects the preservation of life, or because, property being
more easily usurped and more difficult to defend than life,
the law ought to pay a greater attention to what is most
easily taken away; or finally, because property is the true
foundation of civil society, and the real guarantee of the
undertakings of citizens : for if property were not answer-
able for personal actions, nothing would be easier
than to evade duties and laugh at the laws. On the
other hand, it is no less certain that the maintenance of
the State and the government involves costs and out-
goings; and as every one who agrees to the end must
acquiesce in the means, it follows that the members of a
society ought to contribute from their property to its
support. Besides, it is difficult to secure the property of
individuals on one side, without attacking it on another;
and it is impossible that all the regulations which govern
the order of succession, will, contracts, &c. should not
lay individuals under some constraint as to the disposition
of their goods, and should not consequently restrict the
right of property.

But besides what I have said above of the agreement

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between the authority of law and the liberty of the citizen, I
there remains to be made, with resptct to the disposition
of goods, an important observation which removes many
difiiculties. As Puffendorf has shown, the right of pro-
per^, by its very nature, does not extend beyond the life
of the proprietor, and the moment a man is dead his goods
cease to belong to him« Thus, to prescribe the conditions
according to which he can dispose of them, is in reality less
to alter his right as it appears, than to extend it in fact.

In general, although the institution of the laws which
regulate the power of individuals in the disposition of their
own goods belongs only to the Sovereign, the spirit of
these laws, which the government ought to follow in their
application, is that, from father to son, and from relation
to relation, the goods of a family should go as little out of
it and be as little alienated as possible. There is a
sensible reason for this in favour dP children, to whom the
right of property would be quite useless, if the father left
them nothing, and who besides, having often contributed
by their labour to the acquisition of their father's wealth,
are in their own right associates with him in his right of
property. But another reason, more distant, though
not less important, is that nothing is more fatal to morality
and to the Republic than the continual shifting of rank
and fortune among the citizens : such changes are both
the proof and the source of a thousand disorders, and
overturn and confound everything; for those who were
brought up to one thing find themselves destined for
another ; and neither those who rise nor those who fall are
able to assume the rules of conduct, or to possess them-
selves of the qualifications requisite for their new condition,
still less to discharge the duties it entails. I proceed to
the object of public finance.

If the people ' governed itself and there were no inter-
mediary between the administration of the State and the
citizens, they would have no more to do than to assess
themselves occasionally, in proportion to the public needs
and the abilities of individuals : and as they would all keep
in sight the recovery and employment of such assessments,
no fraud or abuse could slip into the management of
them; the State would never be involved in debt, or the
people over-burdened with taxes ; or at least the knowledge

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^i how the money would be used would be a consolation
For the severity of the tax. But things cannot be carried
Dn in this manner : on the contrary, however small any
State may be, civil societies are always too populous to
3e under the immediate government of all their members.
It is necessary that the public money should go through
the hands of the rulers, all of whom have, besides the
interests of the State, their own individual interests,
which are not the last to be listened to. The people, on its
side, perceiving rather the cupidity and ridiculous expendi-
ture of its rulers than the public needs, murmurs at seeing
itself stripped of necessaries to furnish others with super-
fluities; and when once these complaints have reached a
certain degree of bitterness, the most upright administra-
tion will find it impossible to restore confidence. In such
a case, voluntary contributions bring in nothing, and
forced contributions are illegitimate. This cruel alternative
of letting the State perish, or of violating the sacred right
of property, which is its support, constitutes the great
difficulty of just and prudent economy.

The first step which the founder of a republic ought to
take after the establishment of laws, is to settle a sufficient
fund for the maintenance of the Magistrates and other
Officials, and for other public expenses. This fund, if it
consist of money, is called cerarium or fisc, and public
demesne if it consist of lands. This, for obvious reasons,
is much to be preferred. Whoever has reflected on this

matter must be of the opinion of Bodin, who looks upon
the public demesne as the most reputable and certain

means of providing for the needs of the State. It is
.remarkable also that Romulus, in his division of lands,
rmade it his first care to set apart a third for the use of the

State. I confess it is not impossible for the produce of the

demesne, if it be badly managed, to be reduced to nothing ;

but it is not of the essence of public demesnes to be badly

administered.
Before any use is made of this fund, it should be assigned

or accepted by an assembly of the people, or of the estates

of the country, which should determine its future use.

After this solemnity, which makes such funds inalienable,
r their very nature is, in a manner, changed, and the revenues

become so sacred, that it is not only the most infamous

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theft, but actual treason, to misapply them or pervert them
from the purpose for which they were destined. It reflects
great dishonour on Rome that the integrity of Cato the
censor was something so very remarkable, and that an
Emperor, on rewarding the talents of a singer with a few
crowns, thought it necessary to observe that the money
came from his own private purse, and not from that of the
State. But if we find few Galbas, where are we to look
for a Cato? For when vice is no longer dishonourable,
what chiefs will be so scrupulous as to abstain from
touching the public revenues that are left to their
discretion, and even not in time to impose on themselves,
by pretending to confound their own expensive and scan-
dalous dissipations with the glory of the State, and the
means of extending their own authority with the means
of augmenting its power ? It is particularly in this delicate
part of the administration that virtue is the only effective
instrument, and that the integrity of the Magistrate is the
only real check upon his avarice. Books and auditing of
accounts, instead of exposing frauds, only conceal them;
for prudence is never so ready to conceive new precautions
as knavery is to elude them. Never mind, then, about
account books and papers; place the management of
finance in honest hands : that is the only way to get it
faithfully conducted.

When public funds are once established, the rulers of
the State become of right the administrators of them :
for this administration constitutes a part of government
which is always essential, though not always equally so.
Its influence increases in proportion as that of other re-
sources is diminished; and it may justly be said that a
government has reached the last stage of corruption, when "",
it has ceased to have sinews other than money. Now as |
every government constantly tends to become lax, this is
enough to show why no State can subsist unless its
revenues constantly increase.

The first sense of the necessity of this increase is also
the first sign of the internal disorder of the State;
and the prudent administrator, in his endeavours to find
means to provide for the present necessity, will neglect
nothing to find out the distant cause of the new need;
just as a mariner when he finds the water gaining on his

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vessel, does not neglect, while he is working the pumps,
to discover and stop the leak.

From this rule is deduced the most important rule in
the administration of finance, which is, to take more
pains to guard against needs than to increase revenues.
For, whatever dihgence be employed, the relief which only
comes after, and more slowly than, the evil, always leaves
some injury behind. While a remedy is being found
for one evil, another is beginning to make itself felt, and
even the remedies themselves produce new difficulties : so
that at length the nation is involved in debt and the people
oppressed, while the government loses its influence
and can do very little with a great deal of money. I
imagine it was owing to the recognition of this rule that
such wonders were done by ancient governments, which
did more with their parsimony than ours do with all their
treasures; and perhaps from this comes the common use
of the word economy, which means rather the prudent
management of what one has than ways of getting what
one has not.

But apart from the public demesne, which is of service
to the State in proportion to the uprightness of those who
govern, any one sufficiently acquainted with the whole
force of the general administration, especially when it
confines itself to legitimate methods, would be astonished
at the resources the rulers can make use of for guarding
against public needs, without trespassing on the goods of
individuals. As they are masters of the whole commerce
of the State, nothing is easier for them than to direct
it into such channels as to provide for every need, without
appearing to interfere. The distribution of provisions,
' money, and merchandise in just proportions, according to
■ times and places, is the true secret of finance and the
source of wealth, provided those who administer it have
foresight enough to suffer a present apparent loss, in
order really to obtain immense profits in the future.
When we see a government paying bounties, instead of
receiving duties, on . the exportation of corn in time of
plenty, and on its importation in time of scarcity, we must
have such facts before our eyes if we are to be persuaded
. of their reality. We should hold such facts to be idle tales,
' if they had happened in ancient times. Let us suppose

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that, in order to prevent a scarcity in bad years, a
proposal were made to establish public granaries; would
not the maintenance of so useful an institution serve in
most countries as an excuse for new taxes? At Geneva,
such granaries, established and Icept up by a prudent
administration, are a public resource in bad years, and
the principal revenue of the State at all times. Alit et
ditat is the inscription which stands, rightly and properly,
on the front of the building. To set forth in this place
the economic system of a good government, I have often
turned my eyes to that of this Republic, rejoicing to find
in my own country an example of that wisdom and
happiness which I should be glad to see prevail in every
other.

If we ask how the needs of a State grow, we shall find
they generally arise, like the wants of individuals, less
from any real necessity than from the increase of useless
desires, and that expenses are often augmented only to
give a pretext for raising receipts : so that the State would
sometimes gain by not being rich, and apparent wealth
is in reality more burdensome than poverty itself would
be. Rulers may indeed hope to keep the peoples in stricter
dependence, by thus giving them with one hand what they
take from them with the other; and this was in fact the
policy of Joseph towards the Egyptians : but this political
sophistry is the more fatal to the State, as the money
never returns into the hands it went out of. Such
principles only enrich the idle at the expense of the
industrious.

A desire for conquest is one of the most evident and
dangerous causes of this increase. This desire, occasioned
often by a different species of ambition from that which^
it seems to proclaim, is not always what it appears to be,
and has not so much, for its real motive, the apparent
desire to aggrandise the Nation as a secret desire to
increase the authority of the rulers at home, by increasing
the number of troops, and by the diversion which the
objects of war occasion in the minds of the citizens.

It is at least certain, that no peoples are so oppressed
and wretched as conquering nations, and that their suc-
cesses only increase their misery. Did not history inform
us of the fact, reason would suffice to tell us that, the

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g^reater a State grows, the heavier and more burdensome
in proportion its expenses become : for every province has
to furnish its share to the general expense of government,
and besides has to be at the expense of its own adminis-
tration, which is as great as if it were really independent.
Add to this that great fortunes are always acquired in
one place and spent in another. Production therefore
soon ceases to balance consumption, and a whole country
is impoverished merely to enrich a single town.

Another source of the increase of public wants, which
depends on the foregoing, is this. There may come a
time when the citizens, no longer looking upon themselves
as interested in the common cause, will cease to be the
defenders of their country, and the Magistrates will prefer
the command of mercenaries to that of free-men; if for
no other reason than that, when the time comes, they may
use them to reduce free-men to submission. Such was the
state of Rome towards the end of the Republic and under
the Emperors : for aU the victories of the early Romans,
like those of Alexander, had been won by brave citizens,
who were ready, at need, to give their blood in the service
of their country, but would never sell it- Only at the siege
of Veil did the practice of paying the Roman infantry
begin. Marius, in the Jugurthine war, dishonoured the
legions by introducing freedmen, vagabonds and other
mercenaries. Tyrants, the enemies of the very people it
was their duty to make happy, maintained regular troops,
apparently to withstand the foreigner, but really to enslave
their countrymen. To form such troops, it was necessary
to take men from the land; the lack of their labour then
diminished the amount of provisions, and their mainten-
^ance introduced those taxes which increased prices. This
first disorder gave rise to murmurs among the people; in
order to suppress them, the number of troops had to be
increased, and consequently the misery of the people
also got worse; and the growing despair led to still
further increases in the cause in order to guard against
its effects. On the other hand, the mercenaries, whose
merit we may judge of by the price at which they sold
themselves, proud of their own meanness, and despising
the laws that protected them, as well as their fellows
whose bread they ate, imagined themselves more honoured

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in being Cassar's satellites than in being defenders of
Rome. As they were given over to blind obedience, their
swords were always at the throats of their fellow-citizens, «
and they were prepared for general butchery at the first
sign. It would not be difficult to show that this was one
of the principal causes of the ruin of the Roman Empire.

The invention of artillery and fortifications has forced
the princes of Europe, in modern times, to return to the
use of regular troops, in order to garrison their towns ; but»
however lawful their motives, it is to be feared the effect
may be no less fatal. There is no better reason now than
formerly for depopulating the country to form armies and
garrisons, nor should the people be oppressed to support ^
them; in a word, these dangerous establishments have
increased of late years with such rapidity in this part of
the world, that they evidently threaten to depopulate
Europe, and sooner or later to ruin its inhabitants.

Be this as it may, it ought to be seen that such institu-
tions necessarily subvert the true economic system, which
draws the principal revenue of the State from the public
demesne, and leave only the troublesome resource of
subsidies and imposts; with which it remains to deal.

It should be remembered that the foundation of the
social compact is property; and its first condition, that
every one should be maintained in the peaceful possession
of what belongs to him. It is true that, by. the same
treaty, every one binds himself, at least tacitly, to be
assessed toward the public wants : but as this undertaking
cannot prejudice the fundamental law, and presupposes
that the need is clearly recognised by all who contribute
to it, it is plain that such assessment, in order to be lawful,
must be voluntary; it must depend, not indeed on a parti- ^
cular will, as if it were necessary to have the consent of
each individual, and that he should give no more than just
what he pleased, but on a general will, decided by vote of a
majority, and on the basis of a proportional rating which
leaves nothing arbitrary in the imposition of the tax.

That taxes cannot be legitimately established except
by the consent of the people or its representatives, is a
truth generally admitted by all philosophers and jurists of
any repute on questions of public right, not even except-
ing Bodin. If any of them have laid down rules which

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seem to contradict this, their particular motives for doing
so may easily be seen ; and they introduce so many condi-

, tions and restrictions that the argument comes at bottom
to the same thing : for whether the people has it in its
power to refuse, or the Sovereign ought not to exact, is a
matter of indifference with regard to right; and if the
point in question concerns only power, it is useless to
inquire whether it is legitimate or not. Contributions
levied on the people are two kinds ; real, levied on commo-
dities, and personal, paid by the head. Both are called
taxes or subsidies : when the people fixes the sum to be
paid, it is called subsidy ; but when it grants the product
of an imposition, it is called a tax. We are told in the
Spirit of the Laws that a capitation tax is most suited to
slavery, and a real tax most in accordance with liberty.
This would be incontestable, if the circumstances of every
person were equal; for otherwise nothing can be more
disproportionate than such a tax ; and it is in the observa-
tions of exact proportions that the spirit of liberty consists.
But if a tax by heads were exactly proportioned to the
circumstances of individuals, as what is called the capita-
tion tax in France might be, is would be the most equitable
and consequently the most proper for free-men.

These proportions appear at first very easy to note,
because, being relative to each man's position in the world,
their incidence is always public : but proper regard is
seldom paid to all the elements that should enter into such
a calculation, even apart from deception arising from
avarice, fraud and self-interest. In the first place, we
have to consider the relation of quantities, according to

^ which, ceteris paribus, the person who has ten times the

- property of another man ought to pay ten times as much
to the State. Secondly, the relation of the use made, that
is to say, the distinction between necessaries and super-
fluities. He who possesses only the common necessaries
of life should pay nothing at all, while the tax on him
who is in possession of superfluities may justly be extended
to everything he has over and above mere necessaries.
To this he will possibly object that, when his rank is taken
into account, what may be superfluous to a man of inferior

I station is necessary for him. But this is false : for a
grandee has two legs just like a cow-herd, and, like him

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28o A Discourse on Political Economy

again, but one belly. Besides, these pretended necessaries
are really so little necessary to his rank, that if he shoulc
renounce them on any worthy occasion, he would only b(
the more honoured. The populace would be ready tc
adore a Minister who went to Council on foot, becaus<
he had sold off his carriages to supply a pressing need oi
the State. Lastly, to no man does the law prescribe
magnificence ; and propriety is no argument against right.
A third relation, which is never taken into account,
though it ought to be the chief consideration, is the
advantage that every person derives from the social
confederacy ; for this provides a powerful protection for the
immense possessions of the rich, and hardly leaves the
poor man in quiet possession of the cottage he builds witb
his own hands. Are not all the advantages of society for
the rich and powerful? Are not aU lucrative posts in their
hands ? Are not all privileges and exemptions reserved for
them alone? Is not the public authority always on their
side? If a man of eminence robs his creditors, or is guilty
of other knaveries, is he not always assured of impunity?
Are not the assaults, acts of violence, assassinations, and
even murders committed by the great, matters that are
hushed up in a few months, and of which nothing more is
thought ? But if a great man himself is robbed or insulted,
the whole police force is immediately in motion, and woe
even to innocent persons who chance to be suspected. If
he has to pass through any dangerous road, the countn*
is up in arms to escort him. If the axle-tree of his chaisei
breaks, everybody flies to his assistance. If there is a nois^
at his door, he speaks but a word, and all is silent. If he
is incommoded by the crowd, he waves his hand an^
every one makes way. If his coach is met on the road bj
a wagon, his servants are ready to beat the driver's
brains out, and fifty honest pedestrians going quietly about
their business had better be knocked on the head than ai)
idle jackanapes be delayed in his coach. Yet all this
respect costs him not a farthing : it is the rich man's right,
and not what he buys with his wealth. How different ia
the case of the poor man ! the more humanity owes himJ
the more society denies him. Every door is shut agaiiia
him, even when he has a right to its being opened : and ^
ever he obtains justice, it is with much greater difficul

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than others obtain favours. If the militia is to be raised
or the highway to be mended, he is always given the

^ preference; he always bears the burden which his richer
neighbour has influence enough to get exempted from.
On the least accident that happens to him, everybody
avoids him : if his cart be overturned in the road, so far
is he from receiving any assistance, that he is lucky if he
does not get horse-whipped by the impudent lackeys of
some young Duke; in a word, all gratuitous assistance
is denied to the poor when they need it, just because they
cannot pay for it. I look upon any poor man as totally
undone, if he has the misfortune to have an honest heart,
a fine daughter, and a powerful neighbour.

Another no less important fact is that the losses of the
poor are much harder to repair than those of the rich, and
that the difficulty of acquisition is always greater in
proportion as there is more need for it. "Nothing comes
out of nothing," is as true of life as in physics : money is
the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more
difficult to acquire than the second million. Add to this
that what the poor pay is lost to them for ever, and
remains in, or returns to, the hands of the rich : and as,
to those who share in the government or to their
dependents, the whole produce of the taxes must sooner
or later pass, although they pay their share, these persons
have always a sensible interest in increasing them.

The terms of the social compact between these two estates
of men may be summed up in a few words. "You have
need of me, because I am rich and you are poor. We
will therefore come to an agreement. I will permit you to

i.have the honour of serving me, on condition that you

^'bestow on me the little you have left, in return for the
pains I shall take to command you."

Putting all these considerations carefully together, we
shall find that, in order to levy taxes in a truly equitable
and proportionate manner, the imposition ought not to
be in simple ratio to the property of the contributors, but
in compound ratio to the difference of their conditions
and the superfluity of their possessions. This very
important and difficult operation is daily made by numbers

\- of honest clerks, who know their arithmetic; but a Plato
or a Montesquieu would not venture to undertake it with-

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out the greatest diffidence, or without praying to Heaven
for understanding and integrity.

Another disadvantage of personal taxes is that they may .
be too much felt or raised with too great severity. This, j
however, does not prevent them from being frequently I
evaded; for it is much easier for persons to escape a tax
than for their possessions.

Of all impositions, that on land, or real taxation,
has always been regarded as most advantageous in
countries where more attention is paid to what the tax will
produce, and to the certainty of recovering the product,
than to securing the least discomfort for the people. It
has been even maintained that it is necessary to burden ^
the peasant in order to rouse him from indolence, and that
he would never work if he had no taxes to pay. But in
all countries experience confutes this ridiculous notion. In
England and Holland the farmer pays very little, and in
China nothing : yet these are the countries in which the land
is best cultivated. On the other hand, in those countries
where the husbandman is taxed in proportion to the
produce of his lands, he leaves them uncultivated, or reaps
just as much from them as suffices for bare subsistence.
For to him who loses the fruit of his labour, it is some
gain to do nothing. To lay a tax on industry is a very
singular expedient for banishing idleness.

Taxes on land or corn, especially when they are exces-
sive, lead to two results so fatal in their effect that they
cannot but depopulate and ruin, in the long run, all
countries in which they are established.

The first of these arises from the defective circulation
of specie; for industry and commerce draw all the money
from the country into the capitals : and as the tax destroys^
the proportion there might otherwise be between the needs
of the husbandman and the price of his corn, money is
always leaving and never returning. Thus the richer the
city the poorer the country. The product of the taxes
passes from the hands of the Prince or his financial
officers into those of artists and traders; and the hus-
bandman, who receives, only the smallest part of it, is
at length exhausted by paying always the same, and
receiving constantly less. How could a human body (
subsist if it had veins and no arteries, or if its arteries

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A Discourse on Political Economy 283

conveyed the blood only within four inches of the heart?
Chardin tells us that in Persia the royal dues on com-
modities are paid in kind : this custom, which, Herodotus
informs us, prevailed lon^ ago in the same country down
to the time of Darius, might prevent the evil of which I
have been speaking. But unless Intendants, Directors,
Commissioners and Warehousemen in Persia are a dif-
ferent kind of people from what they are elsewhere, I can
hardly believe that the smallest part of this produce ever
reaches the king, or that the corn is not spoilt in every
granary, and the greater part of the warehouses not
consumed by fire.

The second evil effect arises from an apparent advan-
tage, which aggravates the evil before it can be perceived.
That is that corn is a commodity whose price is not
enhanced by taxes in the country producing it, and which,
in spite of its absolute necessity, may be diminished in
quantity without the price being increased. Hence, many
people die of hunger, although corn remains cheap, and
the husbandman bears the whole charge of a tax, for which
he cannot indemnify himself by the price of his corn.

, It must be observed that we ought not to reason about
a land-tax in the same manner as about duties laid on
various kinds of merchandise ; for the effect of such duties
is to raise the price, and they are paid by the buyers
rather than the sellers. For these duties, however heavy,
are still voluntary, and are paid by the merchant only in
proportion to the quantity he buys; and as he buys only
in proportion to his sale, he himself gives the law its
particular application; but the farmer who is obliged to
pay his rent at stated times, whether he sells or not,

^cannot wait till he can get his own price for his com-

' modity : even if he is not forced to sell for mere subsist-
ence, he must sell to pay the taxes ; so that it is frequently
the heaviness of the tax that keeps the price of corn low.

It is further to be noticed that the resources of com-
merce and industry are so far from rendering the tax more
supportable through abundance of money, that they only
render it more burdensome. I shall not insist on what is
very evident ; u e. that, although a greater or less quantity

[ of money in a State may give it the greater or less credit
in the eye of the foreigner, it makes not the least difference

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284 A Discourse on Political Economy

to the real fortune of the citizens, and does not make theii
condition any more or less comfortable. But I must make
these two important remarks : first, imless a State pes
sesses superfluous commodities, and abundance of mone;
results from foreign trade, only trading cities are sensibl
of the abundance; while the peasant only becomes rda
tively poorer. Secondly, as the price of everything
is enhanced by the increase of money, taxes also musi
be proportionately increased; so that the farmer wil
find himself still more burdened without having more
resources.

It ought to be observed that the tax on land is a rei
duty on the produce. It is universally agreed, however,
that nothing is so dangerous as a tax on corn paid b}
the purchaser : but how comes it we do not see that it i*
a hundred times worse when the duty is paid by the cul-
tivator himself? Is not this an attack on the substanct
of the State at its very source? Is it not the directest
possible method of depopulating a country, and therefore
in the end ruining it? For the worst kind of scarcit}- a
nation can suffer from is lack of inhabitants.

Only the real statesman can rise, in imposing^ taxes,
above the mere financial object : he alone can transforn
heavy burdens into useful regulations, and make the people
even doubtful whether such establishments were not cal
culated rather for the good of the nation in general, thas
merely for the raising of money. ,

Duties on the importation of foreign commodities, 0:
which the natives are fond, without the country standing
in need of them ; on the exportation of those of the growti
of the country which are not too plentiful, and whicr
foreigners cannot do without; on the productions oS
frivolous and all too lucrative arts ; on the importation oj
all pure luxuries; and in general on all objects of luxury^
will answer the two-fold end in view. It is by such taxes^
indeed, by which the poor are eased, and the burdens
thrown on the rich, that it is possible to prevent the cow
tinual increase of inequality of fortune ; the subjection cf
such a multitude of artisans and useless servants to
rich, the multiplication of idle persons in our cities, ai
the depopulation of the country-side.

It is important that the value of any commodity and

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A Discourse on Political Economy 285

duties laid on it should be so proportioned that the avarice
of individuals may not be too strongly tempted to fraud by

^the greatness of the possible profit. To make smuggling
difficult, those commodities should be singled out which
are hardest to conceal. All duties should be rather paid
by the consumer of the commodity taxed than by him
who sells it : as the quantity of duty he would be obliged
to pay would lay him (^en to greater temptations, and
afford him more opportunities for fraud.

This is the constant custom in China, a country where
the taxes are greater and yet better paid than in any other
part of the world. The merchant himself there pays no
duty; the buyer alone, without murmuring or sedition,

^ meets the whole charge ; for as the necessaries of life, such
as rice and corn, are absolutely exempt from taxation, the
common people is not oppressed, and the duty falls only on
those who are well-to-do. Precautions against smuggling
ought not to be dictated so much by the fear of it occur-
ring, as by the attention which the government should
pay to securing individuals from being seduced by illegiti-
mate profits, which first make them bad citizens, and
afterwards soon turn them into dishonest men.

Heavy taxes should be laid on servants in livery, on
equipages, rich furniture, fine clothes, on spacious courts
and gardens, on public entertainments of aU kinds, on
useless professions, such as dancers, singers, players, and
in a word, on all that multiplicity of objects of luxury,
amusement and idleness, which strike the eyes of all, and
can the less be hidden, as their whole purpose is to be
seen, without which they would be useless. We need be

^ under no apprehension of the produce of these taxes being

^arbitrary, because they are laid on things not absolutely
necessary. They must know but little of mankind who
imagine that, after they have been once seduced by luxury,
they can ever renounce it: they would a hundred times
sooner renounce common necessaries, and had much rather
die of hunger than of shame. The increase in their
expense is only an additional reason for supporting them,
when the vanity of appearing wealthy reaps its profit from
the price of the thing and the charge of the tax. As long

Vas there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous
of distinguishing themselves from the poor, nor can the

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286 A Discourse on Political Economy

State devise a revenue less burdensome or more certain
than what arises from this distinction.

For the same reason, industry would have nothing to^
suffer from an economic system which increased thej
revenue, encouraged agriculture by relieving the husband-
man, and insensibly tended to bring all fortunes nearer
to that middle condition which constitutes the genuine
strength of the State. These taxes might, I admit, bring
certain fashionable articles of dress and amusement to an
untimely end ; but it would be only to substitute others, by
which the artificer would gain, and the exchequer suffer
no loss. In a word, suppose the spirit of government was
constantly to tax only the superfluities of the rich, one^
of two things must happen : either the rich would convert ]
their superfluous expenses into useful ones, which would
redound to the profit of the State, and thus the imposition
of taxes would have the effect of the best sumptuary laws,
the expenses of the State would necessarily diminish
with those of individuals, and the treasury would not
receive so much less as it would gain by having less to
pay ; or, if the rich did not become less extravagant, the
exchequer would have such resources in the product of
taxes on their expenditure as would provide for the needs
of the State. In the first case the treasury would be the
richer by what it would save, from having the less to do
with its money; and in the second, it would be enriched
by the useless expenses of individuals.

We may add to all this a very important distinction m
matters of political right, to which governments, con-
stantly tenacious of doing everything for themselves, ought
to pay great attention. It has been observed that per-
sonal taxes and duties on the necessaries of life, as they^
directly trespass on the right of property, and conse-
quently on the true foundation of political society, are
always liable to have dangerous results, if they are not
established with the express consent of the people or its
representatives. It is not the same with articles the use
of which we can deny ourselves; for as the individual is
under no absolute necessity to pay, his contribution may
count as voluntary. The particular consent of each con-
tributor then takes the place of the general consent of the <
whole people : for why should a people oppose the imposi

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A Discourse on Political Economy 287

tion of a tax which falls only on those who desire to pay
It? It appears to me certain that everything, which is not
proscribed by law, or contrary to morality, and yet may
^ be prohibited by the government, may also be permitted
on payment of a certain duty. Thus, for example, if the
government may prohibit the use of coaches, it may cer-
tainly impose a tax on them; and this is a prudent and
useful method of censuring their use without absolutely
forbidding it. In this case, the tax may be regarded as
a sort of fine, the product of which compensates for the
abuse it punishes.

It may perhaps be objected that those, whom Bodin calls
impostors, i. e. those who impose or contrive the taxes,
being in the class of the rich, will be far from sparing
themselves to relieve the poor. But this is quite beside the
point. If, in every nation, those to whom the Sovereign
commits the government of the people, were, from their
position, its enemies, it would not be worth while to
inquire what they ought to do to make the people happy.

•JUN20 1921

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